


nothing is you

by hilyuc



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Breaking Up & Making Up, Drinking, Fluff, Happy Ending, House Party, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Insecurity, Jealousy, M/M, Making Out, Miscommunication, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2020-09-14 06:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20269744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilyuc/pseuds/hilyuc
Summary: Donghyuck shrugs, smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “What is there to talk about?”Mark searches his face for something, not quite knowing what, just any sort of confirmation that what he was saying wasn’t what he truly meant.“I just think,” Donghyuck licks his lips, and Mark notices how chapped they are, the same way he notices the dark circles under his eyes, “I think we should try dating other people.”





	1. i don't understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! life tip: if something's bothering you in a relationship (platonic or romantic) talk to your partner about it. don't be silent and stupid like markhyuck bc it comes back to bite them in the ass afterwards.  
also!! wanted to point out that mark and 00' line are legal here. not that there's any WILD stuff going on in this fic - just for reference !  
ok anyways enjoy reading!!!

*

_ [9:10PM] _

The gym bag rubs uncomfortably against the exposed patch of skin on his shoulder where his t-shirt has slid down under his dune jacket. Mark feels the soles of his feet burn up from the excess time spent on foot and running, finds his throat itching from the evening air, harsh and cold, puffs of smoke leaving his lips with every exhale. Mark is tired. Fatigued. Like a blanket of aching and throbbing has settled over his shoulders, weighing him down into the ground, not resting until Mark ends up six feet under.

So when his phone vibrates in his back pocket, bright lit screen revealing a request of a hangout from Donghyuck, Mark doesn’t think twice before declining, wanting nothing more than to collapse into bed and sleep. 

He slides the phone back into his pocket and revels in how nice the slight wind feels against his heated skin. It lasts only for a couple of heart beats, before the realization that his sweat is cooling rapidly hits him, and Mark begins to make his way towards the bus stop, not wanting to collapse with a fever tomorrow. 

The sky is scattering the type of snowflakes that melt upon the briefest contact with his skin. It’s nice, so Mark doesn’t bother putting on the beanie Donghyuck had gotten him last year, precisely nine days before Christmas. Upon seeing the soft surprise on Mark’s face when he unwrapped the gift just after basketball practice, Donghyuck insisted that it was a joke, and that he’d get Mark a proper gift when the time came, since he was convinced Mark wouldn’t wear it because of the bright orange color. 

Mark, however, had decided that it was bullshit and showed up the next day with the beanie placed neatly on top of his freshly dyed hair, contrasting horrendously with the raven black strands poking out from underneath it.

His friends, all five of them, had doubled over in laughter upon catching sight of him. One, though, had stood still until Mark reached their place by the lockers.

“You look like a traffic cone.” Donghyuck had said with a half-smile, and then kissed him senseless. 

Mark rubs his eyes and sighs.

He can’t help but feel guilty about cancelling his plans with Donghyuck. 

A part of him knows that this is the fourth time this month that he’s rejected the other’s request to spend time together, but another part of him also knows that juggling his last year of high school- involving enough complications on its own- with basketball practices just before game season starts, is unimaginably tiring, both mentally  _ and _ physically. 

If Mark could, he wouldn’t hesitate to spend a week in bed with his boyfriend, re-watching the entirety of the Star Wars movie franchise, or whatever it was that Donghyuck was in the mood for. But he can’t, and it irks him more than it probably should.

His phone vibrates once again, and Mark fishes it out of his pocket. 

It’s a single text from Donghyuck, and Mark’s breath gets stuck in the middle of his throat on its way to his lungs.

[9:21PM]

**_Hyuck<3:_** _I guess if you’re so busy, I might as well find a better boyfriend._

Mark feels guilt beginning to soak his insides, but then it stops, and he doesn’t feel quite anything at all. He stares at his phone screen, the light above the bus stop flickering from time to time, almost mockingly. Mark feels every fleeting breath entering and exiting his lungs, counts them in his head, manages to get up to five, and then the count stops, because he breathes out in a way that makes his nostrils flare and his bones rattle, and then all he feels is a flare of anger that burns everything else to ash. 

How  _ dare _ Donghyuck assume that Mark doesn’t work his ass of every day, trying to balance his grades with his performance on court; and how dare Donghyuck assume that Mark doesn’t have homework to do after practice and in between classes, and that he doesn’t need a single day of rest which he can spend the way _ he _ wants, instead of sulking around at a random fucking frat party while watching other people hit on  _ his _ boyfriend, while  _ he _ fights the urge to throw up for a reason different than the alcohol pumping through his system; and how  _ dare _ Donghyuck assume that Mark also doesn’t have multiple girls and boys standing in line to get a chance to make out with him and actually be _ grateful _ for it instead of bitching about his attention being divided, as if he can’t find someone other than Donghyuck to fuck on the weekends.

Mark find himself shaking as he types out a message of  _ fuck you, I don’t need you anyways  _ before he wipes away warm tears and punches the pole of the flickering light above.

*

_ [7:01AM] _

Mark had gotten on the same bus as he did every morning, and wondered if maybe whatever happened yesterday would already be forgotten when he walked through the school doors. It wasn’t the first time that they had fought over something stupidly minor, and the next day made out in a deserted hallway two minutes before class like nothing had happened at all. 

That is not the case this time, though, because when Mark arrives at the same spot by the lockers that their group of friends meets up at every single morning without fail, backs leaning against the metal, a comfortable conversation flowing, smiles and laughs here and there, well, when Mark arrives, Donghyuck isn’t there. 

*

_[12:36PM]_

The six of them are sitting at the lunch table they have claimed as their own, but something feels off. Something has felt off ever since Mark had greeted them the same morning, only to receive painfully fake smiles, a couple of  _ hello’ _ s, and a few wandering gazes directed towards his bruised knuckles.

It might not have seemed like anything was wrong at first glance- Jisung and Chenle were discussing the movie they were going to see as soon as the last bell rang, hands flying around in over-exaggerated gestures that could only stem from pure excitement. Renjun was hunched over his Korean homework, worrying his lip between his teeth as Jeno tried his best to softly explain to him the specifics of the grammar he couldn’t quite understand. Jaemin, however, shoulders tense and eyebrows drawn together, had his full attention on the phone in his hand, typing furiously for a good minute or two, and then sitting in silence for the next couple of heartbeats, and Mark could only come to the conclusion that he must be waiting for a response to whatever paragraph of text he had just sent the person on the other end. 

“You okay?” Mark asks, nudging Jaemin gently with his boot under the table.

Jaemin snaps his eyes to meet Mark’s, and Mark thinks that he oddly resembles a deer caught in headlights, brown eyes and all. Jaemin just shakes his head, shoots Mark a half smile and assures him that he’s fine, only to return his attention back to his phone, the same expression as before slowly creeping its way back to his face. 

Mark pushes his mashed potatoes around the plate with a fork, unable to stomach the thought of lunch when the whole room feels like it’s collapsing down on him, the air around them too thick for a regular Thursday afternoon. 

Logistically, Mark knows that their friend circle is too small and too tight for the notion of whatever it was that happened yesterday to slip through the cracks. Mark doesn’t even know what to call it, because it doesn’t feel quite like a fight, and for that he blames the fact that it happened over text instead of in person like the countless times before, but it also feels different, in a way, more serious, because if there’s one thing Mark is sure of, it’s that he’s never felt like this after their fights before. It’s guilt and anger, and sadness, and confusion all floating through his head, slowly forming a hurricane. 

Mark hears a soft  _ oh _ coming from Jisung to his right, and raises his head to follow the boy’s line of sight, only to copy the noise of surprise that slipped past Jisung’s lips just a few seconds prior. 

Donghyuck slides his bag off his shoulder and onto the floor, and Mark tries his best not to flinch when the boy sits down next to Jaemin instead of his usual spot next to Mark. The table has gone completely silent. It’s not necessarily an awkward silence, and it definitely isn’t a pleasant one either, but it’s just the kind that makes Mark want to seek out Donghyucks hand in a search for comfort.

Mark opens his mouth to greet him, but snaps it shut, teeth clacking, when he remembers something even uglier than anger that he had felt yesterday after reading the message, and the absolute hollowness that followed right after he had sent his reply; he remembers the wetness of his sleeves after he used them to wipe away his tears before they could fall, because he felt too embarrassed to cry with strangers throwing him weird looks; he remembers softly asking his mom to leave him alone after she had seen him walk through the front door with swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks; he remembers not bothering to change out of his clothes, crawling under the covers of his bed, and burying his face into the pillow on the left side of the bed, even if Mark himself slept on the right side of it; he remembers crying himself to sleep, and wishing this was a nightmare.

So when his friends begin shooting him hard looks, Mark doesn’t bother acknowledging them before standing up, throwing his bag over one shoulder and walking away. 

Donghyuck’s gaze is the only one that doesn’t follow him out of the room.

*

_ [1:45AM] _

Mark hasn’t slept properly for two nights in a row now. 

He tosses and turns, and tries his best to smother thoughts sounding and tasting and feeling like the only person he’s not allowed to love anymore; and a pillow over his head seems to do nothing but provide space for echoes of those same thoughts to be born. 

But he also lays on his back, gaze boring holes in the ceiling, and wonders when that new crack managed to form without him noticing it earlier. 

His head is filled with everything and nothing at once. A paradox. But then again, so was this whole situation.

Mark groans into a pillow, not even knowing if it’s his, or the one Donghyuck used when he slept over on the weekends or during break, because at this point Mark has spent way too much time with his face buried in it, for the smell to remain clinging on the sheets. Mark has breathed it in completely, and tucked it away in some safe corner of his heart, only for him to keep.

He has to talk to Donghyuck tomorrow. 

Either because this silence feeds into the confusion and fear in Mark’s mind, slowly but surely turning him insane, or because Donghyuck has a voice, a touch, a mere presence of something close to divine, and Mark aches to pray, and to worship.

*

_[2:57PM]_

Mark manages to catch him outside the playground before last period. He grabs onto the sleeve of Donghyuck’s sweater, where it’s poking out under his jacket, and notes with a tight chest that it’s the green hoodie Mark had given him at the very last night of summer break, when the two of them had driven to the outskirts of the city because Mark needed to compare the stars in Donghyuck’s eyes, to the ones high up in the sky.

“What, Mark?” Donghyuck asks, and his voice is sharp on the surface, but Mark doesn’t have to dig much deeper, knows him too well, and hears the tiredness and hurt. Despite that, though, Donghyuck doesn’t try to break away, and Mark likes to delude himself into believing that, despite the cold behavior and nonchalance, he’s missed this, too.

“I wanted to talk to you.” Mark shrugs lamely, lets go of the other, trusting that he won’t flee.

Donghyuck has never really been one to betray Mark’s trust, simply putting his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and drawing his shoulders up to his neck in an attempt to keep warm. His nose is bright red from the cold, nearly the same shade as his jacket, and Mark opens his mouth to tease him about it, only to snap it back shut, when he sees the expression on Donghyuck’s face. 

It’s not angry, or irritated like Mark had expected it to be, and once more, he is reminded that Donghyuck has no real reason to be angry at him, because every ugly thought that had run through Mark’s mind that evening almost a week ago, never reached him. Donghyuck looks vulnerable, and Mark hates it.

“What did you wanna talk about?”

“You know what.” Mark breathes out.

Donghyuck shrugs, smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “What is there to talk about?”

Mark searches his eyes for something, not quite knowing what, just any sort of confirmation that what he was saying wasn’t what he truly meant.

“I just think,” Donghyuck licks his lips, and Mark notices how chapped they are, the same way he notices the dark circles under his eyes, “I think we should try dating other people.”

It was expected, really. That text Donghyuck had sent him had to have meant something, Mark knew that, because, even if it was typed out in the heat of the moment, Donghyuck never apologized for it. And Donghyuck always apologizes for saying things he doesn’t mean. 

And, yet, every single sleepless night, every moment during the day spent doubting that this was real, clinging onto the hope that it was some stupid misunderstanding, all of it completely in vain. Mark feels like throwing up.

Donghyuck seems to notice Mark’s inner turmoil- of course he does- because he speaks up to divert Mark’s head from forming a black hole. “I’m sure you have plenty of people in line to date you.”

Mark has trouble processing what’s happening, doesn’t let himself admit that this is real, because he’s gotten so used to living with Donghyuck in his heart, that with him gone, Mark’s not sure it will ever beat properly again. 

“Anyways, I have to get to class.” Mark snaps his gaze up from where it was boring holes into the snow-stained ground. Donghyuck gives him a heartless smile, and a half wave of his hand. Mark pretends not to notice his voice wavering. “See you around, I guess.”

Mark blinks away his tears. 

“See you around.”

Donghyuck shoots him one last glance before turning on his heel, and leaving Mark alone with his heart suffering to beat in a rhythm other than the melody of the love they had shared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here are my socials if u wanna talk with me :D [twt](https://twitter.com/LOVHYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sunhyuc)


	2. i want to understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's slight biphobia in this chapter (???) nothing major just some kinda gross/insensitive remarks abt mark's sexual preference (if you squint)

_ * _

_ [1:27AM] _

It’s been exactly one week since they officially broke up. It doesn’t feel real to Mark, like a dream he’s stuck in and can’t wake up from no matter how hard he pinches the skin on his forearm, clinging onto the hope that he’ll eventually open his eyes to find Donghyuck sleeping soundly next to him.

That doesn’t happen, though.

Life moves on, always keeps moving on, oblivious to the inner turmoil thrashing around Mark’s head and making him feel like he’s about to choke on his own breathing. Either Mark wallows in self pity and warm anger burning at the pit of his stomach, or he gets his shit together and moves on from whatever the fuck happened between him and Donghyuck. No matter what he chooses, life will keep moving on, whether he’s there to move along with it or stuck on past mistakes.

But, god, it’s so hard to dull the aching in his chest that comes with every Donghyuck-related thought that enters his mind without his consent, burying its seed and letting the roots grow until they reach into every single corner of Mark’s mind, even the parts of it Donghyuck was never supposed to be associated with. It’s hard not to reach for his phone and text Donghyuck a  _ good morning _ first thing after waking up, and a  _ goodnight _ last thing before going to sleep. It’s hard not to approach Donghyuck whenever his back is turned and sliding his arms around his middle, resting his chin on a sweater-covered shoulder and closing his eyes at the familiar sense of belonging. It’s hard not looking at his lips whenever they talk eye to eye, though, Mark supposes that isn’t the worst thing, because they rarely talk at all anymore. 

Mark wonders if Donghyuck aches for him as much as he aches for Donghyuck. As messed up as it sounds, even in his own head, Mark hopes he does. 

Hopes Donghyuck lays awake at night, tossing and turning, unable to bury the thought of Mark under his pillow no matter how long he spends with his head under it. Hopes Donghyuck has to stop himself from calling Mark to tell him about his day and how much he loathes their english teacher for failing another one of his grammar tests, pleading Mark to come over to help him get through the mistakes, promising a hundred kisses as payment.

But Donghyuck had been the one to suggest they break up, wasn’t he? Who says he thinks about Mark at all anymore. 

_ * _

_ [6:10PM] _

“Jesus Christ, Mark, get your shit together!”

Mark whips his head to where coach has blown the whistle, breaths coming out in heavy pants and sweat rolling down the curve of his upper lip down into his mouth, filling it with salt, but he can’t be bothered to wipe it away.

“You’ve been completely out of it for the entire practice.” Coach raises his arms exasperatedly, face colored with disappointment and feigned annoyance. “What the fuck, Mark?”

“Sorry, coach.” Mark says aloud and bows, voice resonating around the entire court, every teammate having gone completely silent after the whistle. He unfolds his body and feels his cheeks and the tips of his ears grow hot. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind recently.”

Donghyuck. Always Donghyuck.

Coach studies him for a moment and Mark breaks away from his scrutinizing gaze, opting for staring at the white lines drawn across the wooden planks of the court. Mark doesn’t really know what to expect, feels shame burn deep and hot in his gut from having let his stupid thoughts about Donghyuck get in the way of practice and let his team down. It’s an ugly situation and Mark feels like crying.

“Well, Jesus Christ, Mark. Then get your ass off the court and don’t bother coming back until you can actually pass the ball without looking like you’re about to cry.” Coach’s voice cuts through the silence like a sharp knife, leaving no room for protest, so all Mark can do is mutter a quiet  _ yes, sir _ , pick up his water bottle and exit the gym with tears streaming down his cheeks.

This is so fucking embarrassing. That’s all Mark can think, not counting the constant mantra of  _ donghyuck donghyuck donghyuck _ in his head. 

“Mark!” a familiar voice sounds behind him, and Mark quickly wipes away his tears before turning around to face his friend. “Wanna grab a drink later?” Johnny asks, and who is Mark to say no to an opportunity to get completely shitfaced and forget that a boy like Donghyuck ever even existed.

_ * _

_ [10:47PM] _

Mark can’t feel his right arm from under him, head laying in Yuta’s lap, his hyung’s hand patting Mark’s hair in a comforting matter. Just like Donghyuck used to do when Mark was too tired after practice to do anything even remotely sexual with him. God, how he misses Donghyuck, so he says it out loud, too, because the filter separating thoughts from words seems to dissolve in the countless shots of soju flowing through his system right now. 

“I miss Donghyuck so fucking much.”

Yuta flicks Mark’s forehead with his fingers. “Stop it. You’re supposed to be forgetting him, not crying about how miserable you are without him.”

“I’m not crying.” Mark says offendedly, rising from where he’s laying on Yuta’s lap, but his head starts to spin so hard he can nearly see god, so he falls back into his previous position. Yuta’s thighs feel so warm under his cheek, Mark feels like falling asleep right there and then, already dreading the hangover he’s going to have to go to school with tomorrow, seemingly his only friend there.

“Whining about wanting Donghyuck back won’t actually make him come back, you know.” Doyoung says from opposite the table, and even though Mark can only see his slender legs under the table, he swears his eyes roll back into his skull from having to listen to Mark act like a child deprived from his lolly. 

“He’s right.” Johnny says from next to Doyoung, his legs so long, his knees touch the underside of the table. 

“You’re supposed to be my friend.” Mark groans and rubs his eyes. 

“I am your friend, Mark, which is why I can’t sit around and watch you look so- so-”

“-Pathetic.” Doyoung finishes for him.

Mark sits upright, this time making sure he doesn’t pass out from the sudden movement, and stares the two men down, managing to also throw a glare at Jaehyun, who’s sitting at the far right corner of the booth, squished between the wall and Doyoung, though he doesn’t seem to mind too much about the latter.

“You need to get him out of your head, Markle sparkle.” Ten says to his left and throws his arm around Mark’s shoulders in an exaggerated manner, swaying the two of them lightly to the rhythm of some cheesy pop song playing from the speakers of the diner. “Go around, find someone else you find attractive and, you know, get down to it.”

Mark goes for another shot, but Yuta manages to move it out of his reach, bringing it up to his own lips and downing it in one go. He sends Mark a wink, and, god, it’s clear who Jaemin takes after.

“You have to try dating other people.” Johnny says. “Donghyuck was the one who suggested it, so you might as well assume he’s already gotten down to it.”

“Maybe you’ll end up finding someone who you like better than him.” Yuta says and joins Ten in throwing hand over Mark’s shoulders, swaying along to the beat. 

_ Impossible _ . Mark thinks.

“Impossible.” Mark says. Literally no filter.

“ _ Or _ ,” Jaehyung finally speaks for what seems like the first time that night, “you can try talking to him and sort things out.”

Everyone at the table groans, Yuta and Doyoung going for another shot, Ten pretending to weep into Mark’s shoulder and Johnny closing his eyes against the headrest, sighing dramatically.

“Fuck you guys.” Jaehyun says and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“No offence,” Doyoung turns to Jaehyun, “but Mark already tried that, and Donghyuck broke up with him, so.”

“Well what’s he gonna do  _ now _ ? Break up with him again?”

Mark thinks about it. He could get Donghyuck alone after chemistry, since they cross paths when he makes his way to math afterwards. They could talk, Mark could explain how he didn’t mean any of the things he said, nor any of the ugly things he thought. Donghyuck could say he didn’t mean to hurt him, and they would make up. It could work.

“It could work.”

Everyone turns to stare at him, Ten even stops swaying to the music.

“Mark-” Yuta begins, but Johnny cuts him off.

“If he wants to try again, let him. It is, or, well,  _ was _ his relationship, so it’s only right he decides how it goes.” Johnny says, and, wow, maybe he truly was Mark’s friend after all. “Just remember, just in case, that there’s no shame in leaving someone in the past and trying out new things.”

Yuta claps just once,“Mark, I hope you understood what the fuck just happened, because I for sure did not.” And he takes another shot.

_ * _

_ [6:30AM] _

Mark wakes up and he feels like death had knocked him in the back of his skull before he went to bed last night. 

He gets out of bed, and makes his way to the bathroom where he proceeds to stare into the mirror for a solid of five minutes, not quite processing his reflection staring right back at him. Blue orchids seem to have bloomed under his eyes while he slept, his stubble begun to grow out again, cheeks bloated, and his lips feel dry and chapped, probably because he couldn’t stop biting them the entire walk home last night, too lost in thought about what to say to Donghyuck to even notice.

Fuck. He had to talk to Donghyuck today.

Mark goes through his well-rehearsed routine quickly, but does not manage to put any concealer under his eyes to hide the blue blooming under them; maybe now he’ll actually look the way he feels,  _ has _ been feeling for the past week and a half. 

_ * _

_ [7:56AM] _

Mark’s shoving his dune jacket into his locker, which proves itself to be a harder task every time, maybe it’s the snow clinging to the material outside, but melting and making it all wet and soggy as soon as he steps foot inside; maybe it’s his fingers that have grown numb from the cold, because no matter how much his friends poke him for having dry hands, Mark always seems to forget his gloves on the shelf by the front door of his house; maybe it’s the tiredness displaying itself by not letting Mark properly shove his jacket into his tiny locker without getting weird glances from students passing by. Whichever it is or isn’t, Mark manages to slam his locker shut after a struggle bigger than he’d like to admit, and notices Jaemin walking towards him.

He’s got his backpack slung over one shoulder, and his jacket tucked under the arm that’s not clutching something akin to an envelope. His hair bounces slightly when he stops in front of Mark with a deadpan expression and his hand extended, holding what really  _ is _ an envelope. Jaemin looked pissed.

“For the one and only Mark Lee.” he says but it sounds almost mocking, shaking the envelope for Mark to take it as if the contents of it are burning his fingertips.

“Why are you mad at me?” Mark asks him, but takes the paper out of Jaemin’s hands, letting the other shove them in his pockets and lean against the metal of the lockers next to them.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“Yes you are.”

“Yeah, okay, I  _ am _ mad at you - mad at the _ both  _ of you.” Jaemin bites through clenched teeth and a tense jaw, gestures towards the envelope now in Mark’s hands. “Read your damn love letter, prince Mark. This is so fucking ridiculous.” But the last part is muttered under his nose and not really directed towards Mark as much as to Jaemin himself.

Mark fumbles with the envelope, fingers still slightly numb from the cold outside, but manages to tear it open in the end.

He spares his friend a glance who’s not even looking at him, instead mumbling to himself about how he hates them for putting everyone through their relationship drama. Mark has an inkling as to who _ they _ could be and bites the inside of his cheek when he starts to read the letter addressed to him.

_ Dear handsome Mark, _

“What the hell is this?” Mark snaps his eyes up to Jaemin, who doesn’t spare him a glance, only motions for him to keep reading, so Mark complies. 

_ A little birdie told me that you and your boyfriend broke up. _

_ That’s like really sad., because I’ve seen you two walking around the halls, hand in hand, looking all cute and lovey-dovey.  _

_ All relationships come to an end, and I’m sure you’re like super sad about your break up or whatever, but I’m writing this to tell you not to be too bummed out, because your ex-boyfriend doesn’t seem all that upset.  _

_ I saw him making out with the guy from ap-biology this morning. _

Mark feels like ripping the letter in half, but decides against it. He searches for Jaemin’s eyes, but the other is staring at the opposite wall and biting the insides of his cheeks.

_I’ve always thought that Lee Donhgyuc was a kind of a… _**_loose_**_ guy._ _(I didn’t wanna say a whore because that’s quite a harsh word, but you get what I mean). _

_ You definitely deserve someone better than that, just saying. So since you’re now single, and I’m single, we could help each other out you know.  _

_ Anyways I’m like super sorry for your loss, but I’m here for you. My house is free on Friday in case you wanna satisfy your “physical needs” or whatever those are called. I don’t care that you’ve done it with a guy before, bisexuals can do it with both, right? I’m all cool with that. _

_ So text me if you’re interested. _

_ -xxx xxx xxx _

Mark folds the letter in half and slides it back into the envelope, which he hands to Jaemin who, to Mark’s slight surprise, takes it without a complaint. 

They stay in silence, Jaemin finally looking at him properly, features softening and gaze filling with something mirroring concern, but this time it’s Mark who doesn’t meet his eyes. 

It’s quite a lot to take in. 

Donghyuck  _ had _ said that they should try dating other people, but  _ Jeno _ out of everyone he could have a pick out of? There were no rules as to who you could and couldn’t date, but for some reason, the thought of Donghyuck dating and, according to the letter, _ making out _ with someone from their mutual circle of friends left a bad taste in Mark’s mouth. But then again, Donghyuck and Mark had dated  _ and _ made out, and everyone else was left to stand by and suffer through it; so this shouldn’t be any different. And yet it felt wrong to have Donghyuck’s love be directed at anyone but him.

“How did you know what was written in the letter?” Mark clears his throat and looks up to his friend.

“Why do you think I knew?”

“You had it written all over your face.” Mark simply states, sighs, and suddenly he feels so small and so stupid for being ready to fall on his knees upon meeting Donghyuck if only it meant the two of them would be back together again. “Did you read it?”

“No.” Jaemin immediately replies. “It was addressed to you. I don’t peer into your private stuff.”

Mark acknowledges his response with a hum and decides to stare at the snow beginning to melt on top of his boots.

“I saw them.” Jaemin says after a while, and Mark looks up again. “This morning, I saw them - by the back entrance. There’s never really anyone besides the ap-biology students at school that early, so when the girl approached me after our class with her letter, I just kinda figured -”

“- that she knew, too.”

“Yeah.” Jaemin replies and rubs his eyes with the backs of his hands. “And I was so angry, because I actually couldn’t believe that a fight over text, was what it took in the end, to break you two up properly.”

“Believe me, I know how stupid that is-” Mark begins to explain himself, feels like he has to, but Jaemin cuts him off before he can manage to get a half-assed excuse out.

“It’s not stupid it’s just - I just - I wish you two had talked about it like proper adults before Donghyuck made his choice and went off to bone with Jeno.”

“At least Jeno’s a nice guy.” Mark shrugs.

And Jaemin laughs at that, but it’s a short laugh, having him looking at Mark with a serious expression once again. “What did the letter say anyways?”

Mark sighs. “It was basically a sex offer. A really long one, I’ll give her that, but you know, still.” 

“Maybe you should take up that offer?” Jaemin raises an eyebrow. “You other half seems to be doing a good job of it already.”

Mark shakes his head and puts his hands in his pockets, tongues his cheek. 

“She called Donghyuck a whore.”

Jaemin’s jaw goes slack and his lips form a slight ‘o’. 

“And spelled his name wrong while doing it.” Mark says finally after minutes of silence.

Jaemin blinks a couple of times and then releases a long breath that reaches Mark’s face and makes his eyelashes flutter slightly. He leans his head back against the locker with a loud thud, and Mark mirrors his stance not soon afterwards. 

They stay like that once more. The halls are slowly beginning to fill up with students, the dark outside growing lighter with each breath. The world seems to be stirring awake, ready to start a new day, a new beginning, and Mark supposes it’s time for him to do the same.

“Hey,” Jaemin calls out softly from his right, and Mark lolls his head to the side to meet his eyes. “I’m here for you, you know. All of us are.”

Mark smiles and there’s a lightness to his chest that hasn’t been there in a while. 

“I know.” he simply says, and it’s the truth.

“Good.” Jaemin smiles back at him, one of those soft smiles that make the world appear just a slight shade brighter. 

Mark turns his head back to stare at the obnoxiously yellow wall opposite them, dares to close his eyes at the feeling of cold metal at the back of his skull, allows a smile to settle permanently on his features when he feels Jaemin’s fingers lock with his and squeeze in a way that makes light bloom behind Mark’s closed eyelids. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me! [twt](https://twitter.com/LOVHYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sunhyuc)


	3. i won't understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof this chapter is quite the long one fellas haha - i originally intended for it to have another "plot point" included, but then it ended up being waaaaay too long on its own, so here you go heh  
also my sincere apologies for posting a chapter like every 6 months or smth D: i've just been hella busy with school (the online version u know ugh) so i haven't had the time nor the energy to write :(( BUT summer break is finally here, and i'm gonna have a lot of free time on my hands so please look forward to more consistent updates !!! (i hope)

_ [6:05PM] _

It’s been a month since they broke up (not that Mark’s keeping track or anything), and everything seems to have gone back to normal, or as normal as it can get with Mark and Donghyuck avoiding each other like the plague.

They  _ do _ talk, just never really anything of substance. Before, Mark could rest his head on Donghyuck’s shoulder and murmur his feelings into the crook of the other’s neck, Donghyuck humming along, easily catching onto what Mark meant behind awkwardly phrased sentences, because that’s what they did - they gave each other their all and received the same in return. 

Now, though, Mark felt his eye twitch as an oddly formal greeting slipped past his lips when him and Donghyuck both arrived 10 minutes earlier to their weekly study session at the local diner - a habit formed long ago so they could make out behind the building near the trash cans before the others got here, their drastically different Friday lesson plans permitting them from seeing each other for the whole day.

Mark opts for staring out the window as soon as they get inside, the parking lot slowly filling up with cars and motorcycles, the last work day of the week coming to a close, a bit past 6 pm, the sky tainted with leftover sunlight, and Mark likes that it’s not pitch black anymore, means that spring is approaching; slowly, but steadily. 

Donghyuck’s sitting opposite him, on the other end of the sofa even if Mark knows that he prefers the window seat. His leg is bouncing rapidly under the table, hitting it once every while and making the ketchup bottles placed neatly in a basket rattle slightly; his fingers are fidgeting with the phone in his hand when he’s not furiously typing away a text to someone who Mark can only assume is Jeno. 

Jeno who is funny and kind, and who is everything Mark isn’t. A great kisser too apparently - Jeno, not Mark - or so Donghyuck had said to Renjun during lunch, voice suspiciously growing in volume when Mark sat down at their shared table, Renjun meeting Mark’s eyes in a plea for help, and for a moment Mark felt more sorry for the other than his own single ass. 

Jeno was everything Mark wasn't, sure - always touching Donghyuck a little too gentle when he needed someone to distract him, and a little too rough when he needed someone to ground him; always slotting their lips together with too little tongue when Donghyuck wanted to get his clothes off as soon as possible, and too much tongue when all he wanted was reassurance that he won’t be left alone; always going a little too far when Donghyuck pushed, and always a little too late to come back when Donghyuck pulled. 

Always a little too foreign to the whirlwind that was Donghyuck’s love - an expression so unlike what anyone expects, that it appears as anything but.

Mark releases his bottom lip that he’s been sucking on, stares at the way Donghyuck bites on his own; also the way his nails pick at the matte layer covering his blue phone case, peeling it off and letting the pieces collect in a small pile on the diner table, fingers red, the middle one on his right hand bleeding slightly, and then his knee hits the table with such force that one ketchup bottle topples over; Mark’s quick to catch it before it hits the ground, putting it upright, and wordlessly reaching in his pocket to take out the spare anxiety pills he keeps in his wallet for the days Donghyuck decides he was smarter than his goddamn doctor, and can go on without them.

Mark rips a single pill from the tablet, and slides it over the table to Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck forces his body to still, looks at the bright silver packaging, and then up at Mark.

Mark stares back, refusing to back away, knows Donghyuck’s itching to spit at Mark how he doesn’t need his meds, and how Mark isn’t his mother. 

_ ( “Yes, but I  _ ** _am_ ** _ your boyfriend,” Mark would say in response, and then kiss Donghyuck gently before handing him a glass of water, “so please. For me.”  _

_ “You’re such a cliche.” Donghyuck would say and then press a kiss to Mark’s forehead as he took the glass from Mark’s hand.  _

_ “I love you.” Mark would blurt out as he watched Donghyuck fill his mouth with water from the glass, cheeks puffing out. _

_ Donghyuck would threaten to spray the mouthful of water on Mark in a silent gesture, making Mark laugh softly, swallowing around his pill, and murmuring back an “I love you too.” when he swallows. ) _

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything though, just pops the pill into his mouth and swallows it dry. Mark can’t help but count this as a little victory, and turns to stare out the window once again, heart a bit lighter than before.

Not long after, the bell above the entrance jingles and a familiar laugh echoes through the diner, both Mark and Donghyuck’s heads shooting up to see their friends having arrived.

The booths in this particular diner have always been a little too small for the seven of them, just wide enough to fit three people on each side, always leaving one side of the booth squeezes closely together, just on the verge of being uncomfortable. It had never really been that big of a problem - they managed to make the most out of what could be considered a disadvantage; back when Donghyuck and Mark were dancing around each other, obvious in their wandering stares and lingering touches, their friends took it upon themselves to always arrange the seating so Mark and Donghyuck would end up squeezed against one another, much to Mark’s dismay at the time - not because he felt uncomfortable, but because Donghyuck looked even prettier up close and his body felt warm where it was pressed against Mark’s. 

Later, when they had finally gotten together after nearly a year of constant pining, Donghyuck would scoot over to the very end of the booth, pulling Mark snugly against him, locking their fingers together and resting his head on Mark’s shoulder, occasionally pressing a kiss to his shoulder when one of their friends went on too long of a ramble about a topic completely unrelated to the study subject they had originally met up here to discuss.

They’re sitting on opposite sides today, though, and Mark can’t help but feel like there’s more separating them than just a rusty wooden table. He pretends not to notice how Donghyuck greets Jeno with a kiss, pretends his heart doesn’t lurch painfully in his chest. 

But he doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, because a warm body is sliding in next to him, smelling of freshly washed linen and a hint of vanilla.

“Hello, Mark Lee.” Jaemin says in his always smooth voice, smile so bright it’s blinding. 

“Hi,” Mark replies and feels a genuine smile spread across his lips, the lines in his shoulders smoothing out at the familiar comfort Jaemin’s presence always managed to bring to the group.

Chenle slides in next to Jaemin, a groan heard by Jisung as the other side of the booth motions for him to take a seat next to the chinese boy. Mark scoots over until his right side is pressed completely against the piss yellow wall of the diner, Jaemin following his movement until their bodies are pressed together a bit too harshly to be comfortable; but he’ll manage, it’s just Jaemin after all.

“How you holding up?” He leans in close to Mark’s ear to ask, not wanting the others to overhear, not that they’re paying much attention anyways, bickering about what flavour milkshakes to get.

Mark knows what he’s implying with the question by the hand resting on his shoulder comfortingly, and his glance wanders to Donghyuck whose head is downcast, eyes scanning the menu for a flavour of milkshake he’d like best. Mark notes that he’s stopped fidgeting. 

“Could be worse.” He whispers back, turning to face Jaemin, their faces inches apart, Jaemin’s wide eyes looking at him, searching his face for any trace of a lie. 

“I could kiss it better.” The younger murmurs with a small smile, puckering his lips, and raising his left hand to pinch Mark’s cheek, making him splutter slightly at the suddenty of it all, the reaction not going unnoticed by Jaemin, making him flick Mark’s forehead playfully. “That was a joke, you weirdo.”

Mark feels his cheeks grow hot, but he finds a soft laugh escaping his lips despite that, shaking his head, because sometimes Jaemin doesn’t feel like a real person. The other laughs too, not at him (never at him), and pulls his face away from Mark’s personal space, right hand sliding down from his shoulder to rest on his thigh; Mark doesn’t swat his hand away this time, instead indulges in the warmth of Jaemin’s hand, physical touch being something he had gotten so used to receiving from Donghyuck, that he hadn’t even noticed how much the lack of it had affected him.

Mark raises his head when a waitress approaches them, ready to take their order, and finds Donghyuck looking at him in a way that makes Mark itch under his skin, because for once, Mark has no clue what the expression on the other’s face means.

_[7:23PM]_

“Oh right, shit!” Renjun suddenly pipes up when they’re stacking the plates in a neat pile to make the clean up job easier for the employees, making everyone stop and look at him with wide eyes. “There’s a party at YangYang’s place next Friday. I forgot to tell you.”

Everyone at the table groans dramatically like they have any plans for Friday.

They don’t.

“When?” Jeno asks and then sips the remains of his milkshake through his straw in an oddly aggressive way, putting it on the top of the stacked plates with a loud clink.

“On Friday, you pea brain,” Renjun deadpans, giving Jeno his hand to jank him out of the booth.

“The  _ time _ , you pea brain.” Jeno says, raising his voice in pitch at the last part in a bad imitation of his hyung.

Renjun sticks out his tongue at him, and Jeno puts a hand over Renjun’s mouth.

“At seven.” Renjun murmurs when he struggles out of Jeno’s grasp, cheeks tinted slightly under the bright lights of the diner. 

Mark draws his eyebrows together, sucking on the inside of his cheek; he has practice until eight on Friday that he can’t miss, because the last game of the season is coming up, and Mark hasn’t been as in shape as he and his coach would like him to be, mind always occupied with the thoughts of familiar touches that have disappeared, and warm gazes that have grown cold.

Mark watches as Jeno puts his hand out, palm up, for Donghyuck to take and help him out of the far side of the booth. It’s unnecessary, because Donghyuck can climb out of the booth himself, he’s not a child, for god’s sake; and yet, Donghyuck’s lips form a soft smile as he clasps his hand around Jeno’s and lets himself be pulled up to his feet, Jeno’s arm sneaking its way around Donghyuck’s waist, and Mark has to tear his gaze away before he says something he’ll regret. 

“I can’t.” Mark gets out, and suddenly all eyes are on him.

“You can and you will.” Renjun says and grabs Mark by the arm, leading him and the group outside.

Mark pinches Renjun’s forearm with his free hand, making the other boy yelp and draw his hand away, shooting him an intense look that lacks any real anger. 

“I have practice until eight, you _ pea brain _ .” Mark raises his eyebrows, and Chenle slaps him on the back with a loud laugh. 

Jeno chuckles next to him, poking Mark’s side with the hand that’s not wrapped around Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck’s looking straight ahead.

“Parties don’t last an hour, Mark.” Renjun says, and holds open the door, the cold evening air hitting Mark’s face and making him wrap his jacket tighter around himself with a shudder. “You can get your ass over there at like nine, and everyone will probably still be sober enough to put a name to your face.”

“To a face like this one, hell yeah!” Jaemin yells and slaps Mark’s ass with such force he feels it tingle through his legs.

“Jaemin, stop, you’re gonna make a dent!” Jeno protests dramatically through a giggle, removing his hand from Donghyuck to wrap both arms around Jaemin, picking him up and swinging him around like there’s barely any weight in those long limbs.

“I can’t possibly make it worse!” Jaemin gets out between laughs, and then yelps when Jeno begins pinching his sides, knowing damn well the boy is ticklish as hell.

“This is harassment.” Mark mumbles and lets Chenle swing a heavy arm around him, making the both of them stumble slightly.

“You  _ have _ to come to the party, hyung.” Chenle whines, jutting out his lip, completely ignoring Jaemin’s horrendous laughter behind them, growing increasingly more concerning the longer Jeno keeps tickling him. 

“You’re gonna make him go into cardiac arrest!” Renjun says somewhere behind them, and moves to untangle Jeno and Jaemin from each other.

“You can’t leave me to be the only sober one.” Jisung sighs, and wipes a fake tear, throwing his arm around Mark’s left shoulder, not as harshly as Chenle, which Mark is grateful for, too afraid his legs might actually give out if someone were to put more weight on his worn out body than necessary. 

“Please, hyung.” Chenle draws out the last syllable, and leans his head on Mark’s shoulder, which can’t be all that comfortable, because they’re walking and Chenle’s head keeps bobbing up and down with every step they take, hitting Mark’s jaw and making him pinch the boy’s side to have him retreat.

“You have to help me keep an eye out on those three,” Jisung says, gesturing behind them, voice much lower as if he’s afraid the trio might overhear. 

Mark cranes his neck to look back at the three slowly making their way to catch up to them, Jaemin’s hands now thrown around Renjun, making the boy’s already small body look impossibly smaller; Jeno’s leaning towards Jaemin to says something, but Mark’s too far to overhear, and then Jaemin looks up from where he’s been trying to kiss Renjun’s cheek for the past minute or so to meet Mark’s eyes and shoot him a soft smile. 

Mark turns his head back to the road ahead, the bus stop finally coming into view. “Fine, I’ll come to your damn frat party.”

Chenle exclaims in excitement and plants a wet kiss on Mark’s cheek, laving the older to wipe it away with his jacket sleeve. 

“You’re coming too, yeah?” Jisung asks from besides him, and Mark his to lean his upper body slightly forward to see past the younger and catch a glimpse of Donghyuck’s side profile.

He’s looking straight ahead, but his gaze seems unfocused, eyes a bit glazed over, cheeks red from the biting cold, and maybe it’s a reach for Mark to think that this is how Donghyuck looks right before he’s about to burst into tears, but Mark likes to think that he’s mapped out every part of Donghyuck well enough to know what each expression means; and they might not be together anymore, and Donghyuck might be locking lips with someone other than him, but the younger had opened himself up for Mark in more ways than one, allowed Mark to see sides of him and know him in ways no one else did, so it’s only natural, Mark tells himself, that he is not to take that for granted.

“Hyuck-ah.” Mark calls out for the younger in a soft voice, the same one he always used when Donghyuck would show up at his door after another fight with his mother, cheek swollen and burning red, breathing shallow and hands shaking.

Donghyuck turns his head in their direction and it takes a couple seconds for his eyes to focus on Mark’s own.

“Are you coming to the party?” Jisung asks again.

Donghyuck forces his gaze away from Mark and towards Jisung, swallowing the lump that must have formed itself in his throat, and putting on an easy smile, shoulders rising up in a careless shrug. “Sure I am.”

It’s so easy for him, Mark thinks, and tries to meet Donghyuck’s gaze again, desperately wanting to catch a glimpse of the warmth behind his eyes, afraid the mask will come back up permanently and he won’t ever be allowed to see beyond it, leaving the other to crumble behind it by himself; but Mark doesn't get the chance as their three other friends finally catch up, and Jeno’s arm is around Donghyuck once again, and all Mark can hope for is that if it’s not  _ him _ who Donghyuck bares himself to anymore, then Jeno will be the one to hold him together before he manages to fall apart.

_ [8:00AM] _

“ _ Come on _ , hyung.” Chenle whines, bottom lip jutting out in an exaggerated attempt at a pout.

“No.” Mark retorts, short and sharp, slamming the locker shut with such force it makes Chenle’s hair rustle slightly from the gush of air.

“It’s no fun partying sober,” Chenle presses on, linking his arm with Mark’s when the older moves to get to class, matching his stride, “besides, I’m almost an adult anyways.”

Mark raises his eyebrows at the younger. “ _ Almost _ doesn't count.”

“I hate you, Mark Lee,” The younger boy groans, throwing his head back. “You’re depriving me of a fun Friday night.”

“I’m depriving you from throwing up on someone’s shoes like Jaemin did last time.”

“But Jaemin’s a loser,” Chenle goes out of his way to stop his foot on the ground like an actual child, “I have much higher tolerance.”

“Oh, and how would you know that, huh?” Mark questions, but he can’t be bothered to keep the smile off his lips when Chenle sputters at the confrontation. He knows Chenle has drunk before, he’s not  _ stupid _ , but he’s also not going to be held accountable for what might happen when Chenle drinks alcohol supplied by Mark.

“Hyung, please.” Chenle stops, halting Mark as well, and the older turns to face him in the empty hallway. “Don’t make me ask Renjunnie hyung.”

And his expression is so soft and earnest, and his voice so soft and pleading, and Mark has never really been able to resist other people asking him for help. He grunts and rolls his eyes, and Chenle’s face lights up immediately even before Mark says anything, knowing he had already won him over.

“Fine.” Mark mutters, Chenle enveloping him in a tight hug, and it’d be quite dramatic if it were just for the fact that Mark had agreed to buy him a couple of beers, but Mark knows that there’s more to it than just that simplicity - it’s Chenle growing up, and it’s Mark agreeing to be there for him along the way. “ _ But- _ ” Mark draws back and puts his hands on the other’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes, “-no more than two cans.”

Chenle opens his mouth to argue, but closes it and sighs with a small smile, and nods ever so slightly.

“Okay, good.” Mark says and links their arms together once more, begins to walk. “I can’t believe I’m supporting you morphing into a future alcoholic.”

Chenle laughs loud and clear, the sound echoing through the hallway.

_ [1:20PM] _

The three of them are squeezed tightly together in the alcohol aisle - Mark, Jaemin, and Jeno - for no apparent reason except their shared discomfort of middle aged ladies in search for the cheapest wine shooting them dirty looks for even daring to lay their virgin eyes on a single alcoholic beverage.

“I hate it here.” Jeno states when Jaemin obnoxiously smiles at an old lady looking them up and down until she meets his eyes and turns away with a loud scoff.

Mark pats Jeno’s butt in his own twisted way of comfort, and honestly, he had thought things would be weird between them ever since Donghyuck made it his mission to suck Jeno’s tongue out whenever the two of them met. It’s not, though, which Mark is grateful in ways he might not even fully realise.

He can laugh at Jeno’s jokes when no one else does (because they’re not even  _ that _ unfunny) without having to stifle his laughter when the feeling feels too wrong all of a sudden; he can lean his body on Jeno’s when the other wraps a hand around his shoulders, doesn’t have to feel his muscles tense under his skin and his breath stop halfway down his throat; he can pull Jeno on the side after biology and ask him through purple prose how Donghyuck is doing, feeling the lines in his shoulders smooth out when the other assures Mark that everything is going well, and Mark can be glad that them falling apart ended with Jeno catching Donghyuck safe in his hands.

“I’m just gonna get beer.” Mark states dumbly after they’ve spent way too much time in front of the alcohol stands for them to pass as teenages who know what they’re doing.

No one says anything to object, so Mark picks up a six pack from the third bottom shelf, and puts in in their cart without much grace, then raises his head up to find Jaemin and Jeno looking at him with pleading eyes, and groans as he picks up another six pack and plops it down next to the other one.

They make their way to checkout through the snack aisle, Jeno pushing the half-empty cart, because they really didn’t come here for much besides when they already had, Jaemin making it his mission to fill up the rest of the cart with exactly four bags of chips and two packs of gummy candy.

“You’re paying for that.” Mark points a finger at Jaemin who just raises his hands as if he wasn’t the one guilty of making sure their cart was filled with snack bags in every color of the rainbow.

He takes out a couple of crumpled bills from his wallet as the cashier lady beeps their stuff, letting Jeno pass with the cart, Jaemin slapping a twenty thousand won bill into his open palm and pinching Mark’s side as he joins Jeno in loading their stuff back into the cart.

Mark shows his ID for the drinks, slides the bills over the counter, pockets the spare change, bids his farewell to the unimpressed lady at the cash register, and the three of them are on their way.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jaemin begins.

“Congrats.” Jeno says in response and receives a playful shove from the former, making the cart rattle and nearly crash into Mark.

“Anyways,” Jaemin tries again and shoots Jeno a glare when the other snickers, “you know how Mark basically got a sex offer from a girl at our school, right? So I’ve been thinking-”

“Mark  _ what _ ?” Jeno stops in the middle of the parking lot, the cart’s overused wheels squealing at the sudden halt.

“Maybe he could pick up the offer, you know, let off some steam-”

“I  _ what _ ?” Mark stops next to Jeno, both of them staring at the younger with mouths agape.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Jaemin crosses his arms over his chest, a pout forming on his lips. “Let me remind you that  _ Jeno _ here,” he points at the boy, “has already been going at it with  _ your _ ex boyfriend,” he points at Mark. “No offense, Jeno.”

“None taken.” Jeno dumbly blinks up at him.

Mark sighs and nudges his friend, the wheels of the cart squealing as Jeno pushes it towards Mark’s car, falling into the same stride as before. 

“I don’t need to let off any steam.” Mark tells Jaemin as simple as that, and it’s not even entirely a lie. He’s fine. Sure, sometimes he’d lay in bed after a practice game, the last remnants of adrenaline still rushing through his veins, and shove a hand down the front of his sweatpants with a particular face in his mind, burned behind his eyelids too vividly to ever escape it properly. But he was fine. _ Fine _ . “Besides,” Mark continues, “the girl was an ass anyways.”

“Okay, but still - with someone else then.” Jaemin leans against Mark’s navy blue car when they arrive, Jeno popping open the trunk. “There’d be many people down to sleep with you, probably even date you.”

“Donghyuck said the same thing when he broke up with me.” Mark lets slip past his lips before he can stop himself, the atmosphere around them going silent at how soft and fragile Mark’s voice comes out sounding.

“Hyung-” Jeno says, caring as always.

“No, listen,” Jaemin cuts him off and steps in between them, his voice gentle but firm. He grabs Mark by the shoulders to force his gaze up form the ground and to his eyes. “You have to accept that this could be the end.”

Mark bites his lip and stares at Jaemin’s long lashes, not really wanting to look into the brutal honesty that was pooling in the boy’s brown eyes. It’s a stupid though to think that no matter how far Donghyuck and him go, they will always be brought back together somehow - by life, or by destiny, or by God - but it’s what Mark had grown to believe after countless fights that never lasted more than a few days, ending with Donghyuck sobbing into Mark’s chest, hands clutching onto him as if not holding on tightly enough will make him slip right through his fingertips. They pushed and pulled, like the moon chased away the tide and pulled it back when the time was right. 

Mark can’t help but think that maybe this time they pushed each other too far out of orbit to simply reach and pull back.

“The party this Friday,” Jaemin pulls Mark’s thoughts back to earth, “find someone who piques your interest, someone you feel comfortable with. Just  _ try _ .”

Mark thinks about kissing someone other than Donghyuck - something he hadn’t done for more than a year since the younger had crashed their mouths together in front of a convenience store, making Mark drop the hot dog he was holding, pulling back, and then saying he’d been wanting to do that for so long, and then apologising, and then trying to leave, and then Mark was pulling him back and slotting their lips together for the second time that night. It feels wrong, even just the thought itself, so it’s hard to imagine the physical feeling of someone’s unfamiliar lips against his own.

He wants to say no, try and convince Jaemin that he’ll keep trying and at some point Donghyuck will budge, but he’s tired; tired of being pushed away and pulled back like the string of a yoyo in the hand of a child, worn out, and ready to snap.

“I’ll try.” Mark says instead.

“Good.” Jaemin says and smiles genuine. “All I’ve ever asked of you was to try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/LOVHYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sunhyuc)


	4. i don't want to understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this ended up being way longer than I anticipated.. it's literally almost as long as the entire story so far lmaooo. But I wanted to get this plot point out of the way so the story can finally progress.  
Markminners come get yalls JUICE the mark/jaemin tag comes into play this chapter and it's a wild ride so you can finally get your money's worth!!!  
Some warnings for this chapter: there's a panic attack happening (also some throwing up, but it's very brief) so be careful if that kinda stuff triggers you, even though it's nothing too major or detailed. Yeah I think that's more or less it. I hope you enjoy reading this monstrosity of a chapter :D  
(also thank u to lovely ash for beta-ing this and not letting my headass grammar mistakes be left in)

_ [3:20PM] _

Mark hasn’t moved from his spot on Jaemin’s bedroom floor in 15 minutes, the back of his skull filling up with a dull ache from being pressed against the laminate, legs tucked under his ass, but he’s  at least thankful that his back lays on top of Jaemin’s fuzzy blue carpet. 

Mark finds a thought entering his head, urging him to get up from his position or his limbs might actually lose all feeling until he won’t be able to stand up without toppling over like a badly built lego statue.

But then Jaemin is pushing the door open, the loud creaking filling the room, and Mark just closes his eyes at the presence alone. 

The smell of ramen hits his senses before he even manages to catch a glimpse of the food, turning his head to see Jaemin setting the two bowls on the carpeted floor with a soft mumble about how they’re too hot.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty.” Jaemin nudges Mark’s leg with his own, and, god, it really has fallen asleep, because there’s barely any feeling at the contact. 

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Mark mutters, voice a bit low from the stretched out silence, and rubs his eyes despite holding them open and fixed on the window this entire time. 

Jaemin doesn’t reply anything to that, and Mark slowly sits his body upwards, groaning when his head spins and the blood rushes through his body with such fervor he can hear it in his ears. He watches as Jaemin sits down cross-legged opposite him, taking one of the bowls in his lap, but waiting for Mark to settle into his new position before beginning to eat. 

Mark’s in no hurry, and he knows Jaemin doesn’t mind - he pokes at his thigh in an attempt to get the blood pumping, to no avail though, settling to just leaning against Jaemin’s bed with his legs extended until he can feel them again. 

They don’t talk.

Mark picks up the bowl and the chopsticks Jaemin had set down next to it, brushes away a hair that has stuck to the metal from the carpet. It should be gross, probably would be in any other circumstance, but Mark finds himself shoving those same chopsticks in his mouth seconds later, slurping up the noodles he couldn’t fit and wiping his chin with the back of his left hand. 

It should be weird, it should be awkward, but it’s not, and Mark finds the realization a bit weird, settling in his chest like a fluttering petal - tickling at the base of his lungs, at the curve of his ribs, like something that shouldn’t be there but something Mark’s not too keen on getting rid of either.

But he supposes it’s always been like that with Jaemin. 

Jaemin who has two feet on each side of a line Mark had drawn to show his limits - always testing, but never fully committing. 

“Are you guys having a pregame on Friday?” Mark asks after he swallows another bite, a bit too overwhelmed at the thoughts that have begun to fill up the gaps of silence growing larger with every passing second.

Jaemin raises one finger while he chews his own bite that he had just put in his mouth. 

“At six.” He says after swallowing.

Mark hums in acknowledgment and draws his eyebrows together ever so slightly because he doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence that follows. It’s not that things have ever been awkward between then, just that he hadn’t noticed the fact that they weren’t.

“We would have invited you but,” he says and trails off, and Mark doesn’t need him to finish the sentence to understand what he means. Even if it weren’t for his practice, Mark was never really one for pregames - preferred to drink strong shit at the heart of the party rather than downing two shots of 15% soju in Renjun’s garage because that was the only place his parents wouldn’t catch them in the act. 

They finish their ramen in silence, putting the bowls on top of each other when they’re done, dropping the chopsticks inside with a loud clink. 

Mark thinks about standing up, feels that his legs might have regained enough feeling in them to support Mark’s weight, but then Jaemin’s moving their bowls to the side and sliding up next to Mark, pressing their sides together, and Mark faintly thinks that his body is warmer than it should be.

“Do you think Jeno actually  _ likes  _ Donghyuck?” Jaemin asks out of the blue.

Mark turns his head to blink up at him, the suddenty of the question perishing every thought from his mind and filling it up with traces of Donghyuck that he had tried so hard to bury over the past month.

“Like, for him to get together with Donghyuck literally a week after you two broke up, I dunno, kinda confuses me... also because I _ for real _ thought he had a thing for Renjun or something,” Jaemin’s speaking, more like thinking, just out loud, “I mean, are they even dating, or does their arrangement just include making out and leaving hickeys on each other’s necks?”

Out of all the things Mark could say, be blurts out: “You think they’ve had sex?”

Jaemin takes the question seriously, like it stemmed from Mark carefully listening and analyzing what the boy had said prior, and not like it had arisen in his mind so suddenly and vividly it made his temples ache. “Could  _ you two _ spend a month without having sex?”

“No.” It comes out like a weird gurgle, making his cheeks heat up.

“Well then.” Jaemin clasps his hands together, turning to Mark and smiling like the older’s world isn’t falling apart at his feet. “I think that answers your question.”

_ [4:56PM] _

“Do you guys think Donghyuck and Jeno have had sex?” Mark asks two days later when he’s over at Chenle’s, lying in the boy’s bed next to Renjun, half watching him and Jisung play some shooter game on the tv, half trying to rid his brain of any sex-related thoughts; any Donghyuck related thoughts on that matter.

“Probably.” Chenle says instead, not looking away from the screen, not helping Mark’s disintegrating brain at all. “Why are you thinking about them having sex in the first place?”

“Maybe he wants to join,” Renjun answers, helpful as always.

“Gross.” Jisung pretends to gag and turns to Chenle, pointing an accusing finger at the pair splayed out on the bed. “Tell them to leave.”

“Why don’t you ask them if you’re so curious?” Chenle shoves Jisung, making the boy topple over with an offended gasp, sparing Mark a glance over his shoulder. “Why does it matter anyway?”

It doesn’t matter. It  _ shouldn’t _ matter, Mark knows this. 

He and Donghyuck aren’t together anymore, both of them are allowed to do whatever they please with whatever people they please, no restrictions laid down, no promises made, nothing holding them back. 

_ Because he cares _ Mark hears Renjun sing-song next to him, and it’s true - he does care. 

He cares, and cares, and cares, always too much or too little, always for the wrong people with their hearts in the wrong places, all broken up and jagged. Mark cares with everything in him, ready to drop to his knees to prove just how much, but Donghyuck has his back turned, his eyes closed against the lips of someone else - he doesn’t see.

He doesn’t care.

“It doesn’t,” Mark says finally, Renjun raises an eyebrow at him, the other two too immersed in their game to care. “It doesn’t matter.”

Renjun sucks on his cheek, runs his hands through Mark’s hair. 

“Whatever you say, Hyung.”

_[9:20PM]_

**jaemin:**

what r u wearing for the party?

**me:**

????

idk why does it matter

**jaemin:**

[rest]

i’m coming over

**me:**

no??

i’m sweaty and tired from practice

**jaemin:**

yes <3

also i’m bringing jeno

And that’s how they end up in Mark’s bedroom on a Thursday evening, his speaker playing shitty EDM for the past fifteen minutes, because Mark’s a loser, according to Jaemin, and can’t invest his money in buying the premium version of Spotify that doesn’t play rave music after a guitar cover of Ed Sheeran’s  _ Shape of You _ and give them all whiplash. 

Mark tells him to leave if he doesn’t like something, and Jaemin apologizes with a finger heart that he sends Mark’s way, but Jeno manages to catch in his mouth before it lands.

How is this guy screwing his ex-boyfriend? Mark doesn’t understand sometimes.

“Which one do you prefer?” Jaemin pulls out two button-up shirts from Mark’s cluttered closet, one’s black with white dots and the other one’s navy blue. Mark never wears either of them.

“He doesn’t need to be looking like he works at Lotte World’s ticket booth,” Jeno says and puts a chip in his mouth. He’s eaten half the pack by himself already. “Put him in a T-shirt or something.”

Jaemin turns back to surveying the closet, “black or white?”

“White.” Mark says at the same time Jeno says “black.”

Jeno shakes his head and munches on his chips. “White’s gonna make everyone see your sweaty armpits.”

“I don’t have sweaty armpits.”

“It’s a house party in early spring.” Jaemin deadpans. “Everyone has sweaty armpits.”

“Fine, pick the black one then.” Mark murmurs, and then, barely audible, “don’t have to be so mean about it.”

Jeno catches it anyway because he pokes Mark’s cheek with a coo. 

“Don’t be upset, Hyung,” he says and points up at Mark’s hair, still wet from his shower ten minutes prior to their arrival. “You’ll style your hair up, and it’ll look really nice.”

“You’ll have people ogling you from every angle, just you wait.” Jaemin wiggles his eyebrows and pulls out a pair of ripped jeans, showcasing them like a national treasure.

They’re black with rips at both knees and one on the right upper thigh, and, oh no, he thought he had thrown them out.

“What?” Jaemin asks when he notices Mark’s head hit his bed with a thud.

“They’re Donghyuck’s jeans.” Mark groans out. 

Why were there  _ still _ traces of him everywhere when Mark tried so hard to erase everything that reminded him of honey skin and sparkling eyes? God actually hated him at this point.

A soft  _ oh _ is all that leaves Jaemin’s lips as he folds the jeans up and places them next to the closet in a thoughtful gesture to make sure Mark doesn’t mix them in with his own clothes again.

“Hyung, Donghyuck and I, we aren’t even-”

“Don’t.” Mark puts a hand up and straightens his body, turning to look Jeno in the eye. “Don’t. I don’t want to know.”

“No, but-”

“Jeno.” Mark warns, and there must be an edge to his voice, a look in his eyes because Jeno drops the subject with a sour face. Mark turns to face a wide-eyed Jaemin. “Add the jeans to the outfit.”

“Are you sure?”

“Jaemin.” Mark huffs out, and his voice wavers a bit because he wants this, he  _ needs _ this, and Jaemin catches on. Always does.

Fuck every Donghyuck related thought purging his mind and making every inch of his body ache with melancholy and want, Mark’s gonna make sure to replace the feeling with something else, someone else, and at this point, if he ever decides to come back to his senses, Donghyuck’s too late to pull him back.

_ [6:05PM] _

**jaemin:**

make sure to style your hair and tuck your shirt into your pants

also

wear a belt

Jaemin had texted him just before practice started, making Mark’s stomach churn with something akin to excitement as he shoved his phone back into his gym bag, last to leave the dressing room, shoes squeaking.

The practice goes smoothly.

Mark makes all the shots he’s expected to, passes the ball to his teammates effectively, puts as much effort as he can into blocking his opponents despite most of them being a head taller than him. 

“You’re different.” Johnny even comments as Mark approaches him, arm extended, back turned, trying to cover him as Jaehyun contemplates who to give the first ball to.

“Yeah?” Mark quirks an eyebrow up even if he doesn’t turn to face Johnny, breathing ragged, sweat pooling at his temples, adrenaline making him buzz under his skin.

“Got that boy off your mind for good, huh?” Johnny breathes out a laugh, words meaning nothing much, nothing heavy.

But Marks decides himself what they mean, and spares a second to turn his head and look Johnny in the eyes, voice firm when he speaks. 

“Maybe I did.”

Practice finishes without any casualties. 

Coach pulls them aside after the final whistle blows and goes through the details of their upcoming game, wishing them all luck, and Mark gets to lie through his teeth that he swears to keep himself in good shape for the game like he’s not going over to a house party to get completely shitfaced right after this ends.

“Ah, Mark!” Yuta calls out after the locker room door slams shut behind the last person entering, the calm and obedient dementor the team put on in front of the coach completely melting away. “There’s light in your eyes! There’s fervor in your lanky, scrawny limbs! There’s color in the apples of your cheeks!” He recites like a Shakespeare piece, hand on his chest and eyes screwed shut in an expression that would read complete passion and devotion if Mark didn’t see the smile tugging at the older’s lips...

“Mark got laid, gentlemen!” Ten yells after Yuta’s finished wiping away his imaginary tears.

“I did not-” Mark waits for the guys to calm down before continuing, “I did not get laid.”

The team erupts in a mixture of groans and moans, and thank god there’s no one else in the building at this hour because this could seriously be misinterpreted and used as gossip fuel for the next three weeks at least. 

But Mark didn’t finish. 

He raises a hand in the air to catch everyone’s attention, waits until they’ve fallen silent and their eyes are on him, and him only. 

“I did not get laid.” He repeats, and a slight smirk settles on his lips that he doesn’t bother hiding this time. “ _ Yet _ .”

If Mark had thought the previous response was loud, then this one made his ears ring and the back of his brain hurt. 

“Mark’s finally getting his dick wet, this calls for a celebration!” Ten slings his arms around Mark and pretends to sob in the crook of his neck.

“So, Mark, when you put on a condom, you have to pinch the tip-” Yuta approaches him with a shit-eating grin.

“Fuck off.” Mark murmurs and attempts to shove Yuta, but the older moves away in one swift motion, though his face is beaming through it all. He feels happy.  _ Cared for _ .

Johnny ruffles his hair, which must be gross because Mark hasn’t showered yet, body and hair sticky with sweat that’s beginning to dry and making goosebumps erupt on his skin, but he’s smiling down at him, so Mark supposes the older doesn’t mind all that much.

Jaehyun sits down next to him on the wooden bench, puts a hand on Mark’s thigh in a silent gesture of comfort, of care. He leans in a tad closer.

“So you two are really over, huh?”

Mark tries not to let his smile drop, tries not to stiffen under Ten’s hold and Johnny’s hand now on his shoulder.

He doesn’t have to try hard though, because his body stays slack, mind calm, heart steady, much to his own surprise, but then again, it was a long time coming, and it had finally arrived - the sensation Mark had longed for after seeing it displayed on Donghyuck’s own body, worn like a well-tailored suit - not caring.

Mark didn’t care.

“Yeah,” Mark says easy, and a laugh escapes past his lips at how nice it feels to be able to say something and finally mean it. “Yeah, we’re over for good.”

_[8:29PM]_

Mark follows Jaemin’s orders.

He showers first thing after coming home, dries his hair as he watches his reflection stare back at him in the mirror, nothing but a towel around his waist. He decides to brush his teeth while he’s at it, not that there’s much use for that, because every inch of his body, inside and out, will end up smelling of booze sooner or later; but it’s the thought that counts.

It’s dark outside, Mark notes through the tiny window above his bathtub as he shimmies into Donghyuck’s ripped jeans, which proves itself to be a harder task than he intended, legs still wet from the shower, making them feel like packaged sausages.

He puts on the black shirt, smears some deodorant in his armpits, (fuck Jeno, he’s not gonna have sweaty armpits), and tucks the shirt into his pants. 

Styling his hair proves to be the hardest part, not having done it since their last winter ball at school, which was more than a year ago, but Mark manages. He makes sure to pick out a strand of hair from his neatly parted hair and let it fall freely across his forehead.

Donghyuck had said once that it made him look hot.

Mark allows this Donghyuck related thought to be one he agrees with.

He puts on a leather jacket for warmth and ends up leaving the house a little bit past nine.

YangYang’s place, as revealed by Google Maps, is only a 15 minute walk from his place, so there’s no need taking his car, not that there’d be much use for it after he’d step foot inside the hormone induced and alcohol enhanced environment that was Liu YangYang’s humble abode in the richest part of town.

He’d been there once in his life when he had gotten a call in the middle of the night from a distressed Jaemin about how Donghyuck had apparently locked them inside the third bathroom on the second floor because he couldn’t breathe, and his body was shaking so bad Jaemin didn’t know what to do; Mark usually prided himself on being mostly a good boy who obeyed orders, but that night he had driven at least twice above the allowed speed limit to get to that rich kid’s bathroom.

“Hey! Mark Lee?!” A voice behind him sounds, loud and clear, bouncing off the asphalt of the empty street.

Mark turns to see a lanky guy walking towards him with a bright smile and bright eyes, hair bleached white, shining yellow under the streetlights.

“Hey, man!” Wong Yukhei pulls him into a hug, and Mark yelps at the suddenty of it, but can’t find it in himself not to hug back, so he wraps his hands around the taller boy’s much bigger frame and pats his much broader back awkwardly. “Why weren’t you at the pregame?” 

Yukhei sometimes joined his friends for their symbolic shots before heading over to whichever party they had been invited to on that particular night, and according to them, he was great company.

“Practice.” Mark shrugs when Yukhei pulls back far enough to take in his appearance. 

Most people would’ve been less obvious about the fact that they were checking someone out from head to toe, but Mark supposed Yukhei had never been like most people, even hears him whistle high and proud into the air.

“You clean up nicely,” Yukhei says with a smile, and it’s genuine.

“Thank you.” Mark gets out, ignoring the sudden heat in his cheeks despite the cold air. “You look great too, but that’s, like, expected.”

The other laughs at that, one of his loud laughs that turn just a bit squeaky at the end. 

Mark smiles as well.

Even though Mark doesn’t know him as well as the others, Yukhei seems like a nice enough guy to be around, and Renjun seems to be very fond of him, which by itself is an achievement that Yukhei probably isn’t even aware of having unlocked.

“Where’s the rest of the guys?” Mark asks when they’ve walked a couple of blocks in comfortable silence. 

“Scrammed.” Yukhei, despite everything, yawns. “I think one of them took hella too many shots.” 

“Uh, which one of them?” Mark asks before he can stop himself, a familiar but uncomfortable feeling settling in his stomach and crawling up his throat.

“The firecracker one.”

“The firecracker one?”

“Yeah, you know, the one who’s all bark no bite.” Yukhei motions with his hands like he’s about to conjure an image up right there and then. “Flirts like crazy, but then backs out like he got stung.  _ Donghyuck _ I think was his name.”

“Donghyuck,” Mark repeats like it’s the first time.

Oh, but Donghyuck could  _ bite _ , alright.

“Yeah,” Yukhei says and then turns to Mark. “Weren’t you two together or something?”

“Were.” Mark kicks a pebble skitting over the sidewalk. “We broke up.”

“Oh, man, _ shit _ , I didn’t know-”

Mark laughs despite himself. 

“It’s fine, don’t worry.” He assures Yukhei. Himself a bit as well. “That was months ago.”

_ One _ month ago.

“Damn that sucks.” Yukhei sighs, and he sounds genuinely sympathetic. “He’s so pretty, though.”

All Mark can do is hum.

_[9:23PM]_

The music can be heard even from a block away, which lets them know that they’re here.

They round a corner to the house, and the first thing Mark sees is Jaehyun pressed against the wall facing the street with Johnny doing the absolute most at trying to swallow his tongue. 

Mark tears his gaze away, cheeks flaming, and attempts to get the image out of his head before it can settle in permanently. He takes Yukhei by the arm to lead him to the front door, the other having stopped dead in his tracks, eyes boring holes into Johnny’s back.

“Was that  _ Jung Jaehyun _ ?” Yukhei whispers, and it sounds like a wheeze.

Mark doesn’t answer, doesn’t stop until they’re standing in front of the entrance, facing away from whatever the  _ fuck  _ they had just seen, the wood of the front door nearly vibrating from the force of the bass.

There’s no use in knocking so Mark lets go of Yukhei’s wrist and pushes the door open, nearly hitting a couple making out in the lobby. 

“Sorry.” He laughs awkwardly when they send death glares his way.

“Sorry,” Yukhei repeats behind him as he shuts the door.

There’s a lot of people, to say the least. 

Even from where Mark’s standing, both feet planted in the middle of the lobby, he can see that the house is overflowing with people, faces both familiar and not quite, and it’s definitely  _ not _ just from their school, there’s probably a couple of dozen university students here as well. But for a party as big as this one in a  _ house _ as big as this one, it’d be a surprise if there were any less sweaty bodies and any less of a protruding smell of alcohol and weed.

“Mark Lee! Xuxi!” a familiar voice calls from what Mark vaguely registered as the kitchen from his last visit here.

He turns to his left to see none other than Liu YangYang skipping towards them like a literal kid, and Mark sometimes had to remind himself that the boy was the same age as most of his friends, and not five years older than Mark himself was. 

He doesn’t wrap them in a hug as Mark had expected, instead, he stops right in front of them and reaches for a red plastic cup on top of a dresser.

“A drink anyone?” He extends the cup to Mark, eyes looking at him expectantly, and then raises the cup to his nose to smell it. “Damn whiskey. I don’t drink whiskey.” He states with a pout but then drinks it anyways.

YangYang notices the way Mark eyes him with furrowed eyebrows and boops his nose. 

“Don’t worry no one’s spiking anyone’s drinks here. Drugs are off-limits.” He says and slings an arm around Mark’s shoulders in a smooth motion. Mark turns his head to the side where Yukhei was standing just moments before to see him gone. “ _ Poof _ ,” YangYang says, noticing Mark’s straying gaze, and then laughs at himself, leaning his weight on Mark.

“You want a shot?” He smiles, and Mark sighs.

“Yes, please.”

YangYang removes his hand from Mark’s shoulders to take his wrist and lead him to the kitchen through the slight crowd forming around a ping pong table in the dining room. Mark can’t seem to catch a glimpse of who’s playing against who, but judging by the constant cheers, they seem to be pretty decent.

“Help yourself!” YangYang gestures towards the kitchen island stacked with bottles of every label imaginable. 

Mark doesn’t strain his eyes too much, spots the familiar green bottle of soju, and pours himself a glass, downs it in one go. And then one more. And one more. And then a hand is yanking him backward, warm chest pressing against his back, hot breath tickling his nape.

“ _ Hyung _ .” Jaemin murmurs into the space between his shoulder blades. “I’m so glad you made it.”

Mark spins around to face the other boy and finds his cheeks red, and eyes glossy. He’s smiling though, one of his toothy grins, and Mark smiles too. 

“I promised, didn’t I?” 

“You  _ did _ ,” Jaemin says and gasps, looking Mark up and down, as if only now noticing his appearance, as if  _ he _ wasn’t the one who decided on it. “You wore the clothes I picked out for you.”

Mark hums and lets Jaemin hug him like he just received the best news in his life.

“That’s so nice of you, Hyung. You smell nice too.” Jaemin breathes into the crook of his neck, making Mark shiver slightly, and he hopes the other doesn’t notice, absentmindedly wonders what they look like from an outside point of view. He also notes that YangYang has disappeared.

_ Poof _ Mark thinks and then laughs at himself.

“What’s so funny?” Jaemin pulls back and it takes him a while to focus on Mark’s face. “Can you smell my sweaty armpits?”

“Gross.” Mark pushes him off and turns around to pour himself a drink.

He works to open a bottle with a pink liquid inside. He has no idea what that is, but it smells like cranberries and it looks pretty so Mark decides  _ fuck it _ , and pours himself a glass. Alcohol is alcohol.

Jaemin moves to stand next to him at some point, Mark doesn’t really know when, too busy making sure not to spill the drink from pouring it with an oddly shaky hand.

“Ah, no, Hyung don’t drink that-”

But it’s too late, Mark’s taking a sip - no, a  _ gulp _ , eyes widening at the burning inside his mouth suddenly, and he swallows down quickly, eyes widening even more, mouth clamping itself shut.

“-it’s really strong.”

Mark places the glass on the countertop, spilling the liquid on his fingers. He feels bile climbing up his throat.

“Oh no, no, wait.” Jaemin throws his hands up, scrambling to fetch Mark a carton of orange juice, shoving it in his hands, helping Mark hold it as he chugs down at least half of its contents. “Good boy,” Jaemin mutters to himself as he lowers the carton back to the countertop, and watches Mark for a moment to make sure he’s not throwing up anytime soon.

“That was a horrible experience,” Mark says, and the song switches to one they used to blast in his car during their spontaneous road trips in the middle of summer. “Dance with me?”

“Hell yeah.” Jaemin smiles and takes his hand to lead him to the living room where the music plays the loudest.

“The soju was shit,” Mark says as they find their spot between the crowd. “I barely feel tipsy.”

“Give it time.” Jaemin shrugs and puts his hands on Mark’s shoulders to move their bodies along to the beat. 

They missed the most of the song they even came here for in the first place, and the next song that follows ends up being just the exact EDM one Jaemin had teased Mark about last evening. 

“This can be our couple song!” Jaemin yells over the heavy bass and takes Mark’s hands to  _ jump _ .

That’s all they do.

They jump when the bass grows heavy until they’re red and panting, and then sway to the beat when the song switches to a slower one, Jaemin’s hands around Mark’s neck and Mark’s palms heavy on the other’s hips. It’s hard for him to tell how much time has passed, because all he can see, all he can hear and feel is  _ Jaemin Jaemin Jaemin _ .

“You remember our agreement?” Jaemin leans in to whisper in Mark’s ear, though he’s actually talking normally, just over loud music. He pulls back when Mark nods his head and slides his hands up Jaemin’s sides out of habit like he used to do with-

“Has anyone caught your eye?” Jaemin asks, tilts his head to the side.

Mark looks around them, at the countless bodies swaying along to the beat, at the roaming hands, exploring, at the straying mouths, connecting. He thinks he spots a familiar shade of brown hair somewhere in the crowd, just next to the fireplace, thinks he sees eyes covered with glitter shut tightly, and thinks he sees heart-shaped lips opening up for someone else, thinks he sees his past, present and future. 

But then the moment’s gone, vision clouded when the lights in the room switch from blue to red, and he’s turning back around, and all he sees is  _ Jaemin Jaemin Jaemin _ .

Jaemin with hooded eyes looking slightly down at him, Jaemin with slender fingers threading through the hairs at Mark’s nape, Jaemin with hair glowing red against the lights, Jaemin with lips glowing pink.

Mark kisses him.

“Back in the parking lot, you said to choose someone I felt comfortable with,” Mark says when he pulls back just as quickly as he had leaned in, but not too far, lets their breaths mingle. “I trust you.”

And then Mark’s leaning in again, and Jaemin meets him halfway. Always.

Usually, Mark takes his time, never in a rush, wants to savor the moment, but he’s been so starved off from anything akin to this, and every part of his body - from the soles of his feet to the tips of his fingers - feels like it’s buzzing with want and need he’s finally allowed to let roam free; so he grips Jaemin’s waist with one hand, pulling him closer, the other sliding up to cradle the back of his head and pulling him deeper. He licks into Jaemin’s mouth, and Jaemin opens up for him, presses their bodies closer, and his knees buckle slightly when their groins touch.

Mark breaks away to catch his breath, latches his mouth to the side of Jaemin’s neck, relishes in the sound he  _ feels _ escaping the other’s throat more than he  _ hears _ it over the music. 

God, how he’d  _ missed _ this. Missed being able to give the love his body hadn’t known what to do with and where to put for the past month, always taking, taking, taking, but never giving.

He closes his eyes at the feeling of skin slick with salt under his lips, and he can’t help the thoughts that follow.

Thoughts of honeyed skin under the plush of his lips, under the pads of his calloused fingers, twisting and turning, molding to his will like wax to a flame, always eager to please, always eager to take and to give back. 

Thoughts of moles littered across bare flesh like stars sprinkled in the night’s sky, his lips moving up up up to trace them and form constellations, and then down down down to form stars behind eyes screwed shut.

Thoughts of his name repeated into the still air, chanted like a mantra, like a prayer, like a plea and a promise at the same time.

Thoughts of Donghyuck.

Mark bites down onto flesh, and Jaemin’s hips buckle into his on their own accord. 

Jaemin’s fingers tangle in his hair and he  _ pulls _ , and the noise that escapes Mark’s lips is raw and makes his cheeks burn with something akin to shame.

He leans in to capture Jaemin’s lips again but spots the puzzled expression on the other’s face, eyes fixated somewhere ahead.

Mark turns his head to follow Jaemin’s gaze, spots Jeno approaching, struggling to make his way through the increasing mass of people without pushing anyone too roughly since everyone was already barely holding themselves up on their feet.

Jeno doesn’t stop in front of them, instead moves into Mark’s space, grabs the back of his head, and pecks him straight on the lips.

“I’m so glad you finally stopped being a lip virgin.” Is what Jeno says when he pulls away, lips forming a lopsided smile, and, wow, his pupils are blown fully wide, eyes brimming with red, and, damn, he’s definitely had more than just a few shots like he had said.

“Where's Donghyuck?” The question comes from Jaemin’s lips, surprisingly, Mark still trying to process what had happened.

“Oh, he-” Jeno motions around the room, everywhere and nowhere at the same time, “-he left.”

“Left?” This time Mark and Jaemin blurt out at the same time.

“For fresh air.” Jeno clarifies, laughing at himself, then his eyes suddenly going wide. “Did you guys know YangYang that has a fucking  _ pool _ ?”

The feeling that’s been deep in Mark’s gut ever since the beginning of the evening suddenly makes itself known again, spreads through his chest and wraps around his heart. 

“Oh, Chenle!” Jeno suddenly exclaims, pointing behind them, and the three of them turn to face the younger boy almost in sync.

“Hyung.” He clings to Jaemin, the one nearest to him. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Where’s the bathroom, Jeno?” Jaemin says, voice suddenly clear like he hadn’t been drinking for god knows how long before Mark even got here. But he supposes his mind has cleared itself from the self-induced haze as well.

“Uh, it’s right over there-” Jeno moves to lead Jaemin and a very pitiful looking Chenle to the nearest toilet before the younger manages to throw up on YangYang’s expensive laminate floor. He definitely had more than two beers.

Jaemin meets Mark’s eyes with a look over his shoulder, and that’s all it takes for his legs to move on their own accord through the living room and towards the terrace door that’s already been cracked open, the night’s air cold against his hot skin. 

Mark feels like he can breathe properly again.

Jeno was right, YangYang does in fact have a pool. A big pool, bright lights illuminating half the backyard where they reflect off the water and into the dark sky above. 

There’s a couple of people out here, mostly the ones with a cigarette between their lips because no matter how big the house was, there was no way smoking would go unnoticed. Mark surveys the expanse of land, itching for his glasses when he can’t make out the blurry figures on the far side of the pool, his contact lenses a bit too weak to help him with that particular issue. 

He moves closer to the edge of the pool, but then a body’s suddenly rushing into his, and Mark stumbles a bit from the impact, limbs tangled with a pair that’s not his own.

“ _ Jisung _ ?”

“Hyung, thank god.” Jisung breathes out, and he’s the soberest person Mark’s seen this whole evening, but also the most distraught looking one. 

“What?” Mark asks, already dreading what’s to come next, eyebrows knitting together at the wet patch on the boy’s hoodie, the rolled-up sleeves.

“Donghyuck fell into the pool.”

Mark turns on his heel, eyes darting around the body of water, but Jisung’s hand is steady around his middle.

“It’s fine, he’s fine. I pulled him out with the help of some other dude.” Mark’s shoulders visibly slump at that, the lines of his body smoothing out. 

“Where is he?” Mark asks and Jisung takes him by the wrist to lead the way.

They round the corner of the house, now much darker without the bright light of the pool, his breathing coming out visible into the night. Mark hits his leg on an ugly garden gnome and curses under his breath.

He looks up to see two bodies, one that makes familiarity bloom in his stomach, and the other that makes his chest pang with a sort of ugly feeling as he watches unfamiliar arms smooth down familiar sides. Donghyuck has a jacket around his shoulders - one that’s not his.

“Sungie!” Donghyuck’s voice calls out, and he stands up, beaming, the unfamiliar hands sliding off his body and falling limp at the stranger’s sides, but the boy’s body goes taut when his eyes land on Mark. “Hyung.”

And there’s a slight tilt to his voice, a slight desperation, a slight breathlessness as if the sight of Mark alone breathes fresh air back into his lungs, and makes his body stumble forward to meet Mark halfway, hands extended.

“You look hot.” Donghyuck murmurs and nestles his face the crook of Mark’s neck, arms wrapping around his shoulders, Mark’s own coming to rest on his hips in muscle memory. He can smell the alcohol on Donghyuck’s breath, the chlorine on his clothes, can feel the wet fabric of his soaked shirt against his chest - but he doesn’t pull away. He lets himself have it.

Just this once, he tells himself, just this once before he gives it all up.

“You’re shaking,” Mark notes, snapping out of his thoughts, pulling away to see Donghyuck’s teeth clattering. He turns to the unfamiliar face, then to Jisung. “Why didn’t you get him inside?”

“We tried,” the unknown boy says.

“Too many people,” Donghyuck mutters, and smiles at the slight slur in his voice, hands running up and down Mark’s chest.

Mark lets him have it, just this once.

“Can you get him home?” Jisung asks, not knowing what to do with his hands so he wraps them around himself, suddenly looking small.

“Wanna go home with you,” Donghyuck purrs and leans close with parted lips and half-lidded eyes, but Mark moves out of the way. 

Something in Donghyuck’s face drops.

“I’ll get him home,” Mark says, and slides the stranger’s jacket off Donghyuck’s shoulders, handing it back to the boy who steps closer to take it. “Thanks,” Mark says and tries not to let his voice sound harsh, removes his own jacket, slides it over Donghyuck’s arms, and zips it up properly.

“Are you sure?” The stranger says, and he sounds genuine, like he’s truly worried, and Mark feels slightly bad. “You can take it, keep him warm, just give it back to me whenever.”

“We’ll be fine,” Mark says and the boy’s face settles with a sigh. “Thank you, though,” Mark clears his throat, “for helping him.”

“Of course,” the boy gives him a smile, turns to Donghyuck, “take care, man.”

“Thank you, Dejun.” Donghyuck sing-songs and turns to Mark, nestling into his side.

“Let the others know?” Mark calls out to Jisung over his shoulder, and the younger just gives him a thumbs up, phone already in his hand, body stumbling back towards the house.

Mark maneuvers them across the final stretch of land to get to the dimly lit street, Donghyuck’s hand around his shoulders, legs clumsy where they set foot into the unnaturally green grass of Liu YangYang’s backyard. He’s definitely had enough to drink for all of them.

“Oh, careful,” Mark mutters at the sight of another one of those ugly garden gnomes, attempting to pull Donghyuck to the side so he doesn’t trip on it, but Donghyuck has more alcohol than water in his system, body tense from how much it’s been shaking, so he stubs his foot against the ugly thing anyways.

“Ow, what the fuck!” Donghyuck moans, hand gripping at Mark’s shoulders tighter to keep himself up, small whines escaping past his lips even as Mark laughs at his side, low and breathy, barely audible over the loud music from inside.

“Kinda looks like you.” Mark gets out before the better part of his brain catches up, points at the little gnome, and its ugly little face.

Donghyuck looks at it with squinted eyes, and he turns to Mark when he finally seems to understand what the other had been referring to. 

“Fuck you,” Donghyuck breathes out, warm breath fanning Mark’s face from where they’re pressed nearly entirely together, but then he laughs - small and soft into the crook of Mark’s neck, and Mark feels his heart stutter a little.

They make their way to the main street in silence, the occasional shudder coming from Donghyuck, but otherwise, nothing, just steady breathing against the side of Mark’s neck, comforting in its familiarity.

When they set foot onto the pavement, Mark pulls back. Close enough to still feel Donghyuck’s body heat against his, or, well, what’s left of it.

Under the streetlights, Mark sees Donghyuck’s face properly for the first time tonight.

The glitter he had on his eyes has managed to stain his cheeks, now glowing both pink and gold under the moonlight. His lips are parted, red and curved by cupid himself to show that his body was made of love, breathing warm air into the cold night, breathing new life into the stillness of Mark’s lungs.

_ Pretty. _

“You think you can walk?” Mark asks a little too quick, a little too desperate.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck answers a little too late, a little too breathless, still looking at Mark like he’s trying to find an answer to a question he hasn’t even asked yet.

They walk in silence.

It’s a full moon outside, Mark notes as he stares up into the sky because he can’t bring himself to look at Donghyuck beside him, fears he won’t be able to tear his gaze away.

There’s static in the air, the kind that grows grows grows and makes Mark feel uneasy in his own skin, the hair on his arms stand up, goosebumps erupt all over his body. It stretches and buzzes, and fills the breathable air around them until he feels as if his heart stops right in the middle of his chest, and usually, most nights, Donghyuck crashes their mouths together and keeps his lips there until Mark’s heart sparks to life again.

Tonight he tries, but Mark doesn’t let him.

“Why won’t you,” Donghyuck tangles his hands in Mark’s hair just the way he knows Mark likes and leans in again, mouth parted, breathing hot and heavy, but Mark turns his face away. “Why won’t you kiss me?”

“You’re drunk, Donghyuck,” Mark tries, pushing him off. He wants to say more, wants to scream at himself and scream at Donghyuck, because this just isn’t _ fair _ .

“You kissed Jaemin, though.” 

Mark opens his mouth to respond, but then something gross and scary bubbles in his chest and suddenly Mark feels furious. 

Furious at the accusing tone of Donghyuck’s voice like  _ Mark _ was the one who went around kissing other people in their circle of friends a week after they had ended a relationship both of them had sworn to give everything up for.

Furious at Donghyuck’s pleading eyes, tears brimming at the corners of them, expecting Mark to answer, expecting Mark to pull back after being pushed so far away, expecting Mark to assure and to promise to make things right again, expecting Mark to care.

He clenches his jaw and breathes out a curse, and a part of his brain tells him quietly that this is exactly what happened a month ago in the bus stop under the streetlights; that this is how it all ended, and Mark absentmindedly wonders, as he looks at the tears spilling down Donghyuck’s cheeks, if it’s possible for things to come to an end twice.

Mark doesn’t want them to.

He turns on his heel and heads down the sidewalk, down the road that should lead him back home, Donghyuck following right behind, breaths coming out ragged, and Mark’s name coming out broken, wrong on the tip of his tongue.

“Do you like Jaemin?” Donghyuck asks, voice wavering, but loud. It makes Mark’s ears ring and his chest hurt.

“Of course I like Jaemin,” Mark spits out, and it feels wrong for a tone like this to ever be directed at Donghyuck, but he can’t bring it in himself to care. “Who the fuck goes around kissing people they don’t like?”

“ _ I _ do,” Donghyuck grabs Mark’s wrist to catch up, but he doesn’t pull them to a stop, “because I want to like them, I want to like them so fucking badly, like you like Jaemin and like Jeno likes Renjun, but I can’t. I  _ can’t _ , because nothing is  _ you _ .”

“ _ You _ broke up with  _ me _ !” Mark yells and turns to face him, chest heaving and eyes burning. “I tried to make things right, Donghyuck, I tried  _ so  _ fucking hard, but you just didn’t  _ care _ .”

“I did,” he sobs, tries to hold Mark’s face between his hands, but Mark pulls away, “I still do.”

“Well,  _ I _ don’t,” Mark says before he can stop himself. It’s what he wants to believe, what he  _ has _ to believe.

The expression Donghyuck’s face morphs into, something of raw pain, Mark knows will haunt him forever.

_ He won’t even remember any of this in the morning. _ Mark thinks to himself as he moves down the street to round a corner he knows leads home.

Mark doesn’t pull, not anymore, but Donghyuck follows him anyways.

“Mark, please,” Donghyuck’s voice comes out choked and broken, and Mark tries to ignore the way his stomach drops.

He shouldn’t care.

“Please.”

He shouldn't care. 

“Mark, please, don’t,” and then there’s shuffling and a grunt, all noise in the world halting, making Mark’s body freeze halfway through a step, because, for the love of God, he shouldn’t care, but he  _ does _ .

He turns around to see Donghyuck collapsed on the sidewalk, the light of the streetlamp shining down on him like on a fallen angel, gasps for air filling the silence of the night, and Mark’s on his knees next to him before his brain can catch up - everything, with Donghyuck always, muscle memory.

“Hyuck, hey,” Mark says, ever so gentle, coaxing Donghyuck’s hands from around himself to hold against his chest, making sure to press a palm right where his heart beats. “Breathe with me.”

“I knew you’d find someone else,” he chokes out a sob, fingers clenching in Mark’s shirt.

“Shh, baby, breathe with me-”

“Everyone said so, I knew,” his body’s shaking so badly Mark feels his heart stop halfway through a breath because even with the countless times he’s spent calming Donghyuck down, it had never been this bad.

“Hyuckie, I need you to breathe with me,” Mark feels tears brim at his own eyes as if it’s a part of him that’s hurting, and maybe, even after all this time, it is, “baby, please  _ breathe _ .”

There’s pain and fear sprouting needles in Mark’s throat, and he presses closer, moves to take the boy’s face in his hands to try to get his eyes to focus on him, but before he can manage to do anything, Donghyuck’s turning away from him suddenly, body convulsing, and spilling the contents of his stomach into the curb.

Mark curses under his breath, moves to hold Donghyuck, to try and pull him back to him, because he  _ cares _ . He cares, he cares, he cares, and he’s never, in his nineteen years of life, cared for anyone like this.

Donghyuck wipes his mouth with the sleeve of Mark’s jacket, and it should be gross, but Mark couldn’t give less of a shit.

He turns the boy gently towards him, eyes searching, pleading for Donghyuck’s own gaze to fall upon him. Mark takes the boy’s cold hands into his own slightly warmer ones, notes that Donghyuck’s stopped shaking.

“Come on, even breaths, in-” Mark takes as deep of a breath as he can hold in his lungs, Donghyuck mirroring him the best he can, “-and out.” He releases the air into the night and keeps repeating the same two steps until Donghyuck’s eyes meet his own, and his breathing evens out completely.

They stay like that for what feels like a small portion of forever, Mark rubbing his thumb across Donghyuck’s knuckles as softly as he can, and Donghyuck staring at a sprout that’s begun to grow from between the cracks of the sidewalk. 

Mark wonders what they must look like from the side, from a point of view that has no relation to them, that doesn’t know a Mark or a Donghyuck, just two boys with conjoined hands and conjoined hearts. Two ends coming to meet again.

“Seems you drank quite a lot.” Mark tries to lighten the mood, but Donghyuck’s gaze doesn’t stray from where it’s been boring holes into the asphalt, so he reaches out to brush a strand of hair behind his ear instead. Donghyuck looks up at that, looks at Mark. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

Mark helps him up, his own hands shaking more than Donghyuck’s, even if he has someone to hold onto.

The house is near, Mark can see it from where they make their way towards it slowly. Donghyuck’s begun to shake again, most likely from the cold, but Mark wraps an arm around his middle just in case.

They don’t speak as they walk.

They don’t speak as Mark turns the key in the lock and lets Donghyuck step inside, following suit, and shutting the door behind him as quietly as he can to not wake up his mother. 

They don’t speak as they enter Mark’s bedroom.

They don’t speak as Mark helps Donghyuck out of his wet clothes, tossing them near the comic pile stacked neatly in the corner of his room, and as Mark helps him into his dry clothes, making sure he’s warm before he gestures towards the bed.

They don’t speak as Mark pulls out the inflatable mattress from under his bed while Donghyuck settles on top of it.

They do speak, however, when Donghyuck asks if Mark will hold him while he sleeps, and Mark tells him he will as he crawls under the covers and presses close, because no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise, Mark cares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/LOVHYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sunhyuc) pls talk to me abt anything i'm nice i promise


	5. i could understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was such a hard chapter to write jesus christ, I genuinely struggled so much. there's some interactions that are very dialogue-heavy which already is something I'm not all that used to writing, and these interactions are also very vital to the story so I struggled to get them right. donghyuck and mark finally have their long-awaited conversation which was mainly the reason it took me much longer to finish this chapter than the ones before - i had gotten so used to them not being in the same scenes or interacting very little that it was hard to write a proper interaction haha.  
these characters themselves feel like banging their heads on a table when talking about the multiple relationships in this fic and i, as the one who writes these characters, want to do the same but twice as bad.
> 
> okay enough rambling from me i suppose - you came here for the story not my whining - so this will be it haha i hope you enjoy!
> 
> (huge thanks to [ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangchanhee) for not only betaing this but also listening to me sob about how stubborn this story was being)

_ [3:18 AM] _

Mark wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of distant traffic, to the lingering taste of alcohol on his tongue, to the sight of a beautiful boy sleeping next to him.

The moonlight’s pouring through the window, filling up the room with liquid silver, and Mark stays still as he watches Donghyuck’s chest rise and fall in steady breaths, the white light seeping into his golden skin and making him glow. His arm is thrown loosely around Mark’s waist, palm warm where it presses in the dip of his hip bone just where his shirt has risen to reveal bare skin.

Mark thinks faintly that it must be dark outside because Donghyuck bores the sun in his hands, but he moves away before he allows himself to touch.

He slides out of bed as quietly as he can, steadying himself against the bedside table when his head begins to spin so hard Mark has to squeeze his eyes shut in an attempt to numb the sensation.

He shuffles across the room, wooden floor cold against his bare feet, and spares a look over his shoulder before twisting the doorknob.

Donghyuck has his back turned to him, hair peeking out from the hood of his -  _ Mark’s  _ \- sweatshirt, and it glows warm despite the cold light, everything with Donghyuck always warm.

Mark pushes the door open and shuts it just as quietly. 

The stairs creak under his feet as he makes his way down to the kitchen, stops in the doorway to pet his cat, and moves to the sink to pour himself a glass of water.

He downs it with loud gulps, mouth parched, and then fills up another one which he manages to empty only halfway, so he sets in on the countertop and stares at the cat now perched on the windowsill, wide eyes staring up at the moon.

His feet are cold against the tiled floor, and the red numbers of the stove opposite him glow  _ 3:26 AM _ so Mark supposes he should get back to bed before the cold of the room swallows his body whole.

But he doesn’t want to.

He wants loose arms wrapping around his waist, a chin resting on his shoulder, a kiss being pressed to the corner of his mouth and an  _ I love you _ whispered into the early hours of the morning.

He wants to turn around and slide the arms off his waist to intertwine their fingers instead, and to press his lips to every knuckle, mouth stopping at the fourth finger on the left hand and breath coming out quiet when he promises a forever.

He wants to watch a pair of eyes light up at the gesture, shining so bright he has to look away before it turns blinding, but he can’t bring himself to, so instead, he presses their lips together ever so softly and faintly thinks that forever won’t be enough for them.

He wants Donghyuck, wants their own little part of forever under the moonlight.

The cat meows and Mark wipes away his tears before they fall.

He forces himself to finish the half-full glass he had set down next to the sink, in hopes it’ll help ease the hangover he’ll definitely be sporting when he wakes up properly tomorrow when his brain isn’t fuzzy with sleep and drunk on Donghyuck’s scent. 

He fills up another glass to the brim and sets it down to rummage through the top left drawer where Mark knows they keep their Advil. His headache might go easy on him tomorrow, but Donghyuck’s definitely won’t.

Mark takes the pill bottle in one hand and the glass of water in the other, pushing the drawer shut with his hip, and bidding the cat goodnight before going back upstairs, each step creaking as much as when he had come down.

He pulls the door towards him to open it.

Donghyuck’s still sleeping, arm still extended towards the other side of the bed where Mark was lying before he had awoken with the other’s name on his lips.

Mark moves toward him, places the water and the pills on the bedside table by Donghyuck’s head, and rounds the bed to climb back under the warmth and safety of the covers, of a familiar body next to him.

Sleep doesn’t take him immediately; instead, Mark spends his time mapping out constellations across Donghyuck’s face with his eyes, too afraid the touch of his fingers would wake him up, too afraid it’d mean too much tonight and too little when the morning came. He drags his eyes across the smooth lines of Donghyuck’s cheeks, across the delicate slope of his nose, the curve of his cupid’s bow, and he looks so so pretty under the soft moonlight that Mark leans close to press a kiss to his forehead, drawing back and squeezing his eyes shut at the sudden tears and the sudden ache in his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to no one because Donghyuck doesn’t hear him, voice so quiet it barely exceeds the form of a thought.

Sorry for this and for that, for everything and nothing at once, for caring and then not, for pushing and not pulling back, for wanting and then not, for being there and then not, for everything he could have said long before but didn’t allow himself to.

He keeps repeating it, tears staining his cheeks, sobs escaping into the night, begging for forgiveness, sleep taking him halfway through; no one but the moon having heard him.

_ [1:02 PM] _

Mark wakes again in the early afternoon to the sound of birds chirping, to the taste of regret heavy on his tongue, and to the sight of an empty bed.

He sits upright, eyes suddenly wide open and not a trace of sleep clouding his brain, gaze falling to Donghyuck’s body in the far corner of his room, stilled where he’s got Mark’s hoodie halfway over his head, quickly pulling it back down, not an inch of skin left for Mark to drag his eyes across.

“You were gonna leave?” Mark asks, voice hoarse from sleep as he slides out of bed, already dreading the answer.

“Sorry,” Donghyuck says instead, swallows with his eyebrows drawn together like he’s in pain. He sounds horrible. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Mark ignores the throbbing at his temples and moves across the room to Donghyuck, who looks at Mark like he’s a stranger, and Mark _ hates _ it.

He presses a palm flat on Donghyuck’s forehead right where he had kissed him before, wonders if maybe somewhere in the depths of sleep Donghyuck had felt it.

“You’re burning up,” Mark says as he moves his hand from Donghyuck’s forehead to his cheek, then to the side of his neck, tries not to notice the way Donghyuck’s breath stutters and eyelashes flutter at the touch. “Get back in bed, I’m gonna get a thermometer and some cold medicine.”

“Mark, I’m fine-”

“Donghyuck.” Mark says simple and strict, watching Donghyuck’s eyes as they dart across every part of his face, probably imagining the way they linger on his lips, snapping back up to meet Mark’s eyes as if caught doing something he’s not allowed to. But Mark would allow anything when it came to Donghyuck. “Get in bed.”

Donghyuck doesn’t move from his spot for a while, and Mark thinks he’s going to have to forcefully carry him back and tuck him under the covers, but then Donghyuck’s rolling his eyes and muttering a quiet _ okay mom _ , and plopping back down on the bed.

“I’ll be back,” Mark says, one foot already outside the door, turns his head to look over his shoulder, “drink the water, and take the Advil.”

Donghyuck follows Mark’s gaze to the bedside table and his mouth hangs open as a small  _ oh _ escapes past his lips, and Mark notes with a tinge of disappointment that Donghyuck was so focused on getting away first thing in the morning that he didn’t even notice Mark’s tiny apology in the form of a glass of water and some painkillers.

“For your hangover. Drink it.”

And he slips into the hallway.

They keep their medical box in the upstairs supply closet right next to Mark’s bedroom, so all he has to do is pull open the door and rise to his tiptoes for his hands to feel around for the metal box. It’s cold against the flat of his palms when he finally touches it, wasting no time to lower it down onto the floor. 

There’s enough light coming from the small window above the fully stacked shelf, so Mark doesn’t bother flipping the light switch on, instead, kneeling to rummage through the box for the familiar yellow packaging of the cold medicine his mother always used to give him when he’d forget to close his jacket or properly dry his hair on his way home after practice, coming down with a nasty cough and enough snot to fill an entire bucket. 

His fingers finally clasp around the familiar bottle, the contents nearly emptied, and Mark reminds himself to stop by a pharmacy on his way home from school sometime next week. 

He takes the thermometer and squeezes it between the medicine bottle and his palm, standing up to put the box back where he took it from and deciding to snatch an unopened box of tissues from the bottom shelf before exiting the closet and slamming the door shut.

When Mark enters the bedroom, Donghyuck’s sitting under the covers, blanket drawn up to his chin, back pressed against the headboard. He’s drunk only half the water, but Mark decides it’s better than nothing and doesn’t comment on it.

“Here,” Mark sets down the medicine bottle and moves to slip the thermometer under Donghyuck’s hoodie, everything with him, always, muscle memory, stopping when the other looks up at him with wide eyes. “Sorry,” Mark mumbles, heat rising to his cheeks despite the cold, and letting Donghyuck’s own fingers close around the thermometer, slipping it under his arm smoothly.

Mark busies himself by unscrewing the bottle with the cough medicine, filling up the syringe, and tries his best to ignore Donghyuck’s heavy stare on the right side of his face. 

“How much of last night do you remember?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark meets his eyes.

He remembers everything.

The smell of Yukhei’s cologne when he hugged Mark close and complimented him on his outfit. The taste of the horrible cranberry vodka he accidentally drank too much of, and the soothing feeling of the orange juice Jaemin brought him to soothe the sting, and Jaemin, god, he remembers Jaemin.

Jaemin who glowed red like a devil, like a sin to be committed under the neon lights, and who looked at Mark with such empathy and pain in his eyes after Mark had said he trusted him enough to kiss him, and then kissing back because he knew Mark needed it. 

“Most of it,” Mark looks away and clears his throat, “you?”

Mark also remembers Donghyuck’s hooded eyes and his hot breath against his face when he leaned in close to kiss him, and it had taken Mark everything he believed in not to meet his lips halfway, because, if with Jaemin he felt like he  _ needed _ to kiss him, with Donghyuck he felt like he  _ wanted _ to.

“Some things are fuzzier than others,” Donghyuck says and slides his arm under his hoodie when the thermometer beeps. “But I think falling into the pool helped me sober up a little.”

Mark laughs at that, quiet and private, but Donghyuck sees it and smiles anyways.

He wants to ask Donghyuck to recite the events of last night, bit by bit, so Mark can pick at the exact same spot everything got tangled in and attempt to pull it apart; but he doesn’t manage because Donghyuck speaks first.

“I’m sorry for what happened.” He says, voice rough like sandpaper scratching at skin, and Mark doesn’t like the way it sounds at all. Donghyuck pulls the thermometer out from under his hoodie, his fingers fidgeting with it in his lap. 39,3 degrees. A fever. “But I don’t know if that matters much anymore.”

Mark wordlessly takes the thermometer out of Donghyuck’s hands and moves the syringe to his lips, watches as he closes his lips around it and swallows. He sits down onto the bed by Donghyuck’s legs, doesn’t take them in his lap like he usually would.

Their relationship had gotten so tangled over the past month that no matter how Mark moves, a thread feels like it’s about to snap right under his fingertips. He doesn’t know what is what, everything he could possibly say, possibly do, possibly apologize for feels  _ wrong _ .

“I’m sorry too,” Mark says anyways, maybe to not feel in debt, maybe because he wants to; doesn’t matter - Donghyuck will make his words mean what he wants them to anyway, for better or worse.

“Sorry if I made you feel bad about, you know,” Donghyuck clears his throat and draws his legs up to his chest, the covers rustling and Mark takes the chance to inhale deeply, “kissing Jaemin. It’s none of my business who you choose to date.”

Mark raises his head from where he’s been staring down at his lap, playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, but Donghyuck doesn’t meet his eyes, stares out of the window, and a part of Mark’s brain unhelpfully supplies that he looks pretty even now, with the early sunlight warm on his face.

“It’s good you’ve found someone else, really, it’s what I wanted for you when we broke up in the first place.” Donghyuck marches on, and Mark’s always known that he was a little bit braver, a little bit stronger, a little bit better - it fills Mark with a kind of pride that deflates just as quickly. “I guess I just didn’t expect it to happen so _ fast _ .”

“Donghyuck-” Mark pinches the bridge of his nose, and his voice sounds exhausted even to his own ears.

“It’s not the same, Mark,” Donghyuck catches on, picks up the thread Mark’s been struggling to untangle with gentle hands, and it’s so easy to fall back into old habits when it’s the ones they’ve developed together. “I tried to like Jeno so bad and, like, I  _ do _ \- I  _ love _ him, he’s always been there for me, just,” he spares Mark a glance, makes sure the other is listening as if Mark could look away even if he wanted to, “it’s not the same if it’s not with you.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Mark asks voice low, eyes darting from Donghyuck’s eyes to the moles scattered across his face.

“You weren’t,” Donghyuck says as if it’s obvious, grunts and runs his hands over his face, stretches his legs so the soles of his socked feet press against Mark’s outer thigh. “You were supposed to forget me and find someone better.”

Donghyuck’s head must be a mess of tangled thoughts and his chest filled with unresolved feelings to the brim, nearly overflowing and spilling past his lips - Mark knows this because Donghyuck has trusted him enough to let him see and let him feel - something Mark had thought he’d done with Jeno, but apparently not. 

It’s a complicated thing - Donghyuck’s love - wrapping around Mark in little red strings of fate, long enough to let him pull away but tight enough to tug at his heart whenever he’d stray too far.

“I tried letting you go, I swear, and I thought I’d done it for good when I saw you kissing Jaemin at the party, but  _ fuck _ ,” he inhales so sharply Mark nearly feels the air rattle around them, “I just  _ had _ to go and get drunk and ruin everything like always.”

Mark doesn’t say anything, takes Donghyuck’s feet in his lap, wraps a hand around his ankle, and lets it rest there, the bare skin under his palm just like the boy - soft and warm - even if he himself believed otherwise.

But Mark had always thought he knew better because he didn’t have Donghyuck’s loud thoughts inside his head trying to convince him otherwise.

Mark rubs circles into Donghyuck’s skin, runs his thumb across the dip and curve of his ankle, traces his fingers over the skin above, up up up to where the rest of his leg disappears under the duvet, and then back down down down. 

It’s comforting, Mark realizes, though rather it strikes him as a muffled memory, to have Donghyuck so close to him - skin against skin, heart against heart.

“Do you regret it?” Mark tears open the silence that has settled over them with gentle hands. “Breaking up with me?”

“I do.”

Mark’s lips tug into a smile despite himself but turn back into a frown, because when has Donghyuck not regretted anything he did.

“I cried that night, you know,” Donghyuck continues, and Mark can see him looking at the fingertips ghosting across his skin with the corner of his eye, “when you sent that text. I thought I had fucked everything up for good, and, well, I guess I was right.”

Mark shakes his head gently, strands of uncombed hair falling into his eyes, but he doesn’t bother brushing them away. He had thought such ugly things that night - it makes tears prickle at his eyes. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh.” He breathes out in one long motion, the air hitting Donghyuck’s exposed skin and making goosebumps erupt all over. “I know you didn’t mean it. I was just tired from practice and stressed from school, and your text came at the wrong time, and I…”

None of them say anything, but it’s better this way, Mark supposes - he has the chance to get his breathing under control and blink away the tears in his eyes.

“Do you think we could fix this?” Donghyuck says quiet, uncharacteristically shy. “If you’d let me.”

Mark looks up at that, looks at Donghyuck, finds him staring back, and he seems so small under the covers, under the hood of Mark’s sweater, under the intensity of Mark’s gaze, but his eyes glisten, and his voice is laced with something Mark hasn’t seen in what seems like forever, despite being only a month -  _ care _ .

Donghyuck cares and Mark cares despite trying to convince himself otherwise, and they both  _ care care care _ , but Mark’s chest pings with something heavy when he realizes that this might not be enough anymore.

“I don’t know.” He says honestly but then stumbles over his words, because last night Mark had wondered if it was possible for things to come to an end twice, and today he is sure that he doesn’t want them to. “But we can try.”

Donghyuck breathes out at that, heavy despite trying to be light, shaky despite trying to be calm, and Mark knows that as much as he had wanted Mark to care, he didn’t expect him to.

“Okay,” he says after a little while when Mark removes his hands from his skin, “like when we were seventeen.”

Mark smiles at that, small and soft because things were much simpler when they were seventeen.

When they had kissed for the first time on one of the late dates of June, and couldn’t stop for the rest of summer before school started and the hallways would be filled with judgemental gazes because Mark simply couldn’t get enough of the softness of Donghyuck’s lips and the way his fingers fit perfectly between his own where Mark would clutch their conjoined hands between their chests.

When Mark played basketball purely because he enjoyed the way the net fluttered every time he’d score a shot, Donghyuck picking up the stray balls and throwing them back to him despite having dance practice in a couple of minutes, insisting on staying because he had said he liked seeing Mark’s face light up whenever he’d score a point.

When Mark wasn’t in his last year of high school, wasn’t pressured by his teachers and his parents to pick out a school he wanted to go despite not having any idea what he wanted to do even just in the near future, desperately holding onto basketball as his ticket to a happy life in a future everyone around him deemed safe. 

When Mark and Donghyuck were so in love, it felt like that feeling alone was all they needed to fuel everything else they could possibly need.

“Like when we were seventeen,” Mark says and it sounds like a promise.

_ [7:57 AM] _

Donghyuck doesn’t show up to school on Monday which, really, should’ve been expected with how high his fever was and how horrible his cough had sounded even if he tried to muffle it into the crook of his elbow while he was at Mark’s house.

The rest of his friends do show up, though, their usual spot by the lockers, and Jeno’s the first one to spot him. He looks horrified.

“Hyung, I’m so fucking sorry.” He says with outstretched hands when Mark comes to a halt next to his locker, the tone of his voice and the desperation in his eyes makes Mark’s heart lurch painfully in his chest. Jeno wraps his arms around him and Mark tries to pull back to ask him what’s wrong, the expression’s on his friend’s faces complete opposites of the one on Jeno’s; but then Jeno’s murmuring something in the crook of Mark’s neck, and his friends burst out laughing.

“I didn’t mean to kiss you at the party.”

Fuck, Mark had forgotten about that - mind too occupied with something, someone, else. The same someone who was leaning his side against the lockers and looking at Mark with a badly-suppressed smile.

“It’s fine, Jeno,” Mark pats him on the back a couple of times before uncurling the younger’s arms from around him, “really, it’s no big deal, don’t worry about it.”

“It was only because I was high, I swear.” He lowers his voice as if any of the students passing by cared that he smoked a joint at a rich kid’s party on Friday. “I thought you looked really hot.”

Mark sputters at that, pushing at Jeno’s shoulder as he feels heat creep upon his cheeks, the rest of his friends doubling over in laughter. 

“Fuck you guys,” Mark murmurs and forces his locker open a bit too harshly, nearly hitting Jisung’s head, and tries to ignore the way his face burns.

“I told you the shirt would do wonders,” Jaemin says from somewhere behind Chenle, but Mark can’t even look at him, stares at the picture he has of him and Donghyuck stuck to the very back of the inside of his locker.

Jaemin doesn’t sound affected, doesn’t look affected. 

Maybe he forgot they had kissed at all.

“Are you free after physics?” Mark asks him after he’s slammed his locker shut and found most of his friends halfway down the hallway already, only Jaemin left behind. “I’d like to talk to you for a bit.”

Jaemin seems to sense the slight tilt of distress to his voice or see the tinge of pink reappearing on his cheeks that had cooled down after Jeno’s words.

Jaemin doesn’t play dumb, which Mark is glad for, simply shrugs and tells him that sure, they can talk.

_ [3:20 PM] _

Mark finds Jaemin by the gym, seated on one of the benches in the hallway, back hunched where he’s tapping away at the phone between his knees, distant shouts of girls playing volleyball bouncing off the walls.

“Who are you texting?” Mark asks as the icebreaker, feels weird in his own skin, like Jaemin’s eyes see him differently when he finally pockets his phone and looks up.

“Renjun,” Jaemin says and cracks his knuckles, “he needs help with the korean test tomorrow.”

“Why not ask Jeno?” 

“He has swimming practice tonight.”

Mark hums and sits down next to the boy, makes sure to leave a bit of space between them. He can still feel Jaemin’s body warmth at his side, but he doesn’t dare move away any further because that’d be deemed quite weird for such close friends as them.

Neither of them says anything. 

Mark plays with the hands hanging between his legs, slots his right hand’s fingers into the spaces of his left hand’s fingers, presses his palms together, and thinks about when was the last time he got to hold hands with someone. Maybe it’s quite a pathetic thought, Mark is  _ nineteen _ and not a middle schooler after all, but he can’t help it, misses the feeling of having someone to take the love he offered.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything.” Jaemin finally speaks, but Mark doesn’t look up from his hands. “Whatever you want, Mark.”

And once again Mark feels as if he’s been bestowed the weight of the entire world to carry on his shoulders like he has to choose where to take it, what to do with it, how to not mess everything up, and make himself be hated.

“Do  _ you _ want it to mean anything?” he asks instead, dodges the question which requires an answer because he’s too exhausted to take responsibility.

“You know how I saw Jeno kissing Donghyuck a week after you two broke up?”

Jaemin says and Mark has no idea where he’s going with this, but hums to let him continue anyway. “I talked to him about it - Jeno, I mean - Donghyuck wasn’t that keen on the talking thing yet,” he leans against the wall, gaze straight ahead, “and he told me that Donghyuck came to him one evening, kissed him, and asked him to go out with him.”

“And Jeno accepted,” Mark says but he doesn’t have it in himself to sound angry.

“Jeno refused at first because it’s  _ Donghyuck _ \- he doesn’t go around dating people one after the other, especially after ending a relationship with someone like, well,  _ you _ .” Jaemin continues, ignoring Mark’s remark. “But Jeno saw the way Donghyuck was - everything about him was so  _ off _ , and he looked so incredibly pleading and  _ lost _ that Jeno ended up accepting because he thought it would help,” Jaemin turns to look at him then, and Mark senses the urgency in his voice, looks up to meet his gaze, “it’s how I felt at the party when you kissed me.”

Mark blinks a couple of times until Jaemin tears his gaze away and moves to stare back at the opposite wall.

The whistle blows inside the gym and Mark senses the hallways filling up with girls leaving practice in no time.

“Everyone just wants the best for you both,” Jaemin speaks again, “but you have to understand that we don’t know what that  _ best _ is if neither of you yourselves do.”

“I’m trying to figure it out,” Mark says, feels like he has to make sure that Jaemin knows, that the whole world knows he’s trying his best at things that keep getting messed up right under his own hands.

“I know,” Jaemin turns to give him a small smile, and moves to lean down waits for Mark’s reaction, and when Mark doesn’t pull away, rests his head on his shoulder. “You will, both of you will. Eventually.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls talk to me [twt](https://twitter.com/LOVHYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sunhyuc) hearing ur feedback really helps me write more so pls :((


	6. i will understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again i'm sorry for the long wait D:   
the good news is that the story's coming to a close very soon so you won't have to keep waiting for my slow updates haha
> 
> this chapter is a huge one and i don't really have any reason for that - i was just writing and when i looked up the wordcount after finishing, it was over 9k.. enjoy!

_[6:02 PM]_

“No it  _ can’t _ be purple, Chenle, do you even understand basic color theory?” Renjun groans and pinches the neon marker out from the younger boy’s grasp, and he seems quite offended at the gesture but doesn’t bother trying to win it back along with his dignity.

“Frankly, I believe color theory is overrated,” Jaemin says from opposite Renjun and next to Mark, dipping his fry in way too much ketchup, the sauce dripping onto the already dirty diner table before the food makes it to his mouth.

“ _ Frankly, I believe _ ,” Renjun raises his voice in pitch along with his eyebrows as he rummages through Jeno’s pencil case for an acceptable marker, and then raises his gaze to meet Jaemin’s eyes - crinkled at the corners with the remnants of a smile, “who are you,  _ Shakespeare _ ?”

Jaemin laughs at that, high in sound and deep in his throat, flicks another fry into his mouth.

Mark watches as Chenle uncrosses his arms to take the red marker Renjun hands to him much like a peace offering and begins to color in the letters that spell out GO MARK with three exclamation marks on both sides.

“This looks horrible.” Says Jisung from next to Chenle and opposite Mark.

“Don’t be mean, it looks fine.” Says Jeno from next to Jaemin and a seat away from Mark.

“Yeah, I don’t think any amount of color theory will save this crap.” Says Donghyuck from next to the window and right next to Mark.

Donghyuck with his warm body and his soft voice and the lingering smell of his apple-scented shampoo - next to Mark, within an arm’s reach - looking at the poster for Mark’s upcoming game sprawled across the entire table with a tilted head and hair falling into his eyes because the text is upside down.

Right.

Donghyuck.

He had arrived late to their spot by the lockers on Wednesday morning and moved to stand next to Mark instead of Jeno like he would’ve before, like he  _ should’ve _ before.

“Oh, we’re no longer a thing,” Jeno said over lunch when Mark had asked if everything was alright, stated it as a simple fact, and Mark almost felt the juice he had sipped come out through his nose.

So turns out Donghyuck kept their little promise, and it eased the anxiety in Mark’s mind that had begun trying to convince him that the words they had shared in the vicinity of his bedroom last weekend meant nothing outside of it.

“It’s not that bad,” Mark mumbles and shakes his head to clear his thoughts because it really isn’t.

Sure, the letters are weirdly spaced and there are green hearts of all sizes decorating the paper they had colored blue with pencils because Chenle and Jisung had forgotten to buy colored crafting paper on their way here. Thankfully Jeno had come straight from school, swimming practice on Fridays after lessons, and he allowed them to raid his backpack for any supplies they could use to not have arrived here in vain.

They had found some A4 paper sheets - the thin ones, sadly - and it wouldn’t be the worst thing if the marker Chenle was using on one of the posters right now wasn’t basically bleeding through the page and onto the table, coloring it red.

It could be worse.

Maybe.

“You don’t have to be modest, Mark. You can say it sucks.” Jaemin says and leans forward to snatch an onion ring from Jisung’s plate, the younger yelping and pointing a finger gun at Jaemin who falls back into Mark with a hand on his chest as if shot, mouth chewing around his onion ring happily.

“It’s called not being an ass,” Mark groans as he pushes Jaemin’s entire weight off of him, the younger boy flailing to the other side and into Jeno’s grasp like a bowling pin knocked down after a strike.

“It’s called being in _ love _ .” Jaemin sing-songs, back pressed against Jeno’s side now, tone teasing but eyes soft and Mark knows there’s a certain truth to his words, nestling heavily but not unwelcomely in his chest, the others not seeming to have noticed their little exchange.

His friends - like special kinds of lovers, like special spots carved in his heart for each of them, like family beyond the definition. 

Jaemin’s eyes shift away from Mark’s face and fixate to a spot past where he’s seated, eyes growing impossibly softer, almost pleading, and lips quirking up in a ghost of a smile.

“Love,” he hums quietly to himself and turns away to ask Jeno about swimming practice.

Mark twists his body to spot what Jaemin was looking at and catches Donghyuck staring before the younger can tear his gaze away and pretend nothing had happened.

He pretends anyways.

Donghyuck’s always been good at that - pretending - it’s a trait he had come with if he were a product, a label Mark couldn’t scrub off no matter how frequently he used it.

Mark shifts his gaze from where it was tracing familiar patterns across Donghyuck’s profile to stare at the paper sheet he has in front of him, white unlike the terribly colored one Chenle’s currently working on,  _ MARK _ written in big pink letters with an even bigger heart drawn around them like  _ splat _ \- right in the middle of the page.

“It’s abstract,” Donghyuck says with a huff before Mark even gets the chance to open his mouth.

“Oh what, are  _ you _ Shakespeare now?”

“Fuck off.” Donghyuck shoves Mark’s shoulder, a pretty laugh bubbling past his lips, cheeks tinting pink like the marker in the hand that’s not sliding down the length of Mark’s arm and stopping to rest at the spot where his thumb meets his palm.

They’re almost holding hands, Mark notes with childlike glee and moves to fetch the neglected purple marker from Jeno’s pencil case before he can do something stupid like lean in for a kiss.

“Do you want hearts around it too?” He asks and uncaps the marker with a loud pop.

“Yeah, but I think they will look prettier pink,” Donghyuck says and tilts his head upwards to look at Mark, and only now does he notice they’re close enough for Mark to feel Donghyuck’s breath on his parted lips. If his gaze strays south, Mark doesn’t mention it, too focused on the way Donghyuck’s eyeshadow sparkles even under the cheap lighting of the diner.

“You can color in the letters, I’ll draw the hearts,” Donghyuck says finally after an infinity of silence, and Mark would note the pink creeping up the boy’s cheeks to the very tips of his ears if he wasn’t so aware of his own face burning.

“Okay,” Mark chokes out and, god, it really does feel like when they were seventeen.

Sometime after, somewhere opposite Mark, Renjun groans loudly about another poster being ruined, Jaemin bursting into laughter, and Mark doesn’t bother raising his head from where he’s concentrating on coloring within the lines, fingertips purple from the marker, because right after, Jisung’s horrified voice cuts through the noise:

“But Mark hyung  _ likes _ balls!”

_ [10:30 AM] _

The weekend passes in a blur, filled with sleepless nights and anxious thoughts; filled with his friends doing their best at sending unfunny memes in their group chat at 2 am in an attempt to ease Mark’s nervousness.

The pictures themselves didn’t really help all that much, though Jeno did send a video Mark snorted so hard that he had to sit up and cough at the suddenness of it; but the gesture on its own was enough to make him sleep a bit easier, even if only for a couple of hours.

And so here Mark is, sitting in Mr. Kim’s biology class with eyes drooping and thoughts everywhere but the test on the desk in front of him.

He has to get a good grade on this test - on every test - and it shouldn’t be much of a problem because he had studied this topic for around 10 hours over the course of the weekend, so he should be able to ace this shit in a heartbeat. But he stays blinking down at the dotted line after the first question that asks him to name the three biggest bones in the human body, because for the love of god, he can’t think of anything else than the one hanging between his legs - and it’s not even a fucking _ bone _ .

Mark ends up handing in the page second to last, Renjun - the only one he shares biology with - waiting for him outside the classroom with raised eyebrows.

“What’s gotten into you?” The boy nudges his side as they make their way towards the lockers to switch books for their next classes - maths for Renjun and English for Mark respectively. 

“Nothing, just,” Mark raises a hand in greeting as some girls from their cheerleading team pass by, “a lot on my mind recently.”

“As in-”

“No, Donghyuck and I are fine,” they stop at the lockers and Mark punches his code in, draws his eyebrows together, “I think.”

“Oh you’re more than alright,  _ I think _ .” Renjun smirks to himself before his head disappears into his locker to search for the notebooks he keeps at the very far end of it, “I can’t believe Donghyuck drew you a heart poster and then had the audacity to say _ no homo _ .”

“He didn’t say  _ no homo _ .” 

“Yeah, because it was  _ very _ homo.”

“Where are you going with this?” Mark meets the boy’s eyes when he shuts the locker with a huff.

Renjun laughs to himself and Mark has no idea if it’s because he’s mocking or because he genuinely finds this funny. “He’s literally so in love with you, I can’t believe you two broke up.”

“Yeah, well,” Mark raises his arms and opens his mouth to continue but realizes he has no point to make and lets his arms fall limply back at his sides and his jaw clamp shut.

Renjun hums with a small smile and wide eyes, pinches Mark’s cheek when he frowns too deeply for the younger’s liking.

“Is it the game?” He switches the subject, and Mark’s glad because he can’t spend too much time thinking about his ex-no-longer-ex-but-no-longer-boyfriend-either; not any more than he does already anyways.

“Yeah.” Mark breathes but it comes out shaky and he drags his hands over his face and realizes too late that it’s actually kind of gross because he touched a doorknob someone had probably sneezed on before. 

“Ah, come on, Mark - you’ll do great. You always do.” Renjun stares up at Mark, and even if Mark doesn’t move to meet his gaze, he can see from his peripheral vision the genuineness in his eyes. “And whatever the outcome might be,” he slings his backpack over both shoulders, “we’ll be waiting with drinks anyways.”

Mark laughs and tries not to think too much about it.

Not think too much about how the bigger part of his future depends on the outcome of this game - the universities that will decide to enroll him or won’t, the amount of scholarships he’ll receive or won’t, the good life he will have or won’t.

_[6:20 PM]_

It’s beginning to darken outside, and Mark’s standing at the foot of his bed, black duffel bag contrasting with the dull white sheets underneath it (he should really put them in the washer soon).

His phone chimes from where it’s charging on his bedside table and Mark’s thankful for the distraction, head already beginning to form a black hole and no one around to pull him out of it in time.

It’s their group chat overflowing with good luck wishes and so many heart emojis that Mark’s eyes hurt as he tries to catch a glimpse of the actual texts as they’re whisked away in his notification bar.

He types out a quick ‘ _ i’ll see you guys after the game’ _ and locks his phone.

But before he can put his phone on silent and leave it to fully charge while he packs his bag, a message shows up on his lockscreen - a picture of Donghyuck that Mark had taken on their first anniversary date when they went out to a picnic with the sunset as the backdrop, and talked about their plans for the future they promised to spend together until the day bled into the night, and then kissed under the stars.

Mark never ended up changing it, wonders if Donghyuck kept his version of the same evening on his lockscreen too.

**hyuck **

are you ok?

Mark blinks at the notification before it’s whisked away by another text from their group chat, this one from Jisung begging them not to get shitfaced on a Monday night, and mean words with no meaning from Renjun and Jaemin who seem very set on doing just what the youngest was advising them against.

**me**

yeah

..i think

Three bubbles pop up before disappearing again and Mark reminds himself that he doesn’t need to try and fool anyone.

**me**

i’m nervous

scared

like really

Really scared

His messages show as delivered and then as read and then it’s silent, and Mark thinks that maybe he should’ve just kept insisting he was fine, but it was a habit long developed and long established, to open his heart up to Donghyuck as easily as this, to have him invite and to have Mark follow - everything with Donghyuck always muscle memory.

Mark feels his heart skip a little when the other finally replies.

**hyuck **

meet me by the bleachers at 7

don’t be late 

but drive safely

dumbass

A smile spreads across his face and Mark notices only when his cheeks begin to hurt, and he has to force himself to steady his rapidly beating heart, to type out a response, and to stop the relieved laugh that escapes his lips because maybe they were going to be okay after all.

_[6:57 PM]_

It’s cold outside despite it being the early dates of April already, and Mark finds himself snuggling deeper into his varsity jacket, hands buried in the pockets, fingers drawn into a fist in an attempt to keep as much body warmth inside of him as possible.

The track is lit with bright white lights despite nothing happening outside, only noises from inside the gym growing louder by each passing second as more people pool into the enclosed space, by each step Mark takes closer to the bleachers, to  _ Donghyuck _ .

Mark finds him sitting on one of the wooden stools closest to the running track, back hunched and jean jacket straining against his shoulders drawn upwards in a tense line. 

There’s a group of people on the far side of the field, red cigarette butts burning bright against the darkness of the evening, but Mark pays them no mind, figures they can’t even make out his face from over there, and even if they did, Mark really couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Donghyuck notices him a bit later than he usually would’ve, maybe too zoned out, maybe already forgotten how Mark’s presence feels, maybe a mixture of both; but Mark doesn’t get to dwell on it for too long because Donghyuck is standing up and facing him with wide eyes, always glowing, always pretty.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” Mark replies dumbly.

The air feels heavier than it was before and Mark tries to pretend it’s just his nerves acting up because of the game.

He clears his throat.

“You wanted to see me?”

Donghyuck blinks at him like it’s his first time hearing something like that, like he wasn’t the one that sent the text that made Mark’s heart beat twice as fast as it normally would all the way from his bedroom to here, still stuttering inside his chest.

“Uh, yeah, I uh,” he casts his eyes downwards as he digs inside his jacket pocket for something, mouth going slightly wide when he seems to find it and takes it out for Mark to see.

It’s a bracelet.

“I actually wanted us to make these together that evening,” Donghyuck says and slips the bracelet into Mark’s open palm. It’s pretty, with beads of all colors and two little letters next to each other with a heart between them. M ♡ D. “But, you know, that didn’t really work out,” he laughs but quickly stops himself, twisting and untwisting his fingers because Mark doesn’t hold his hands like he usually would, “I didn’t want the supplies to go to waste so I made it the next day anyways.”

Mark blinks at the small piece of jewelry in his hand, the bright light of the lamppost shining down on it, on them, and in some twisted way he feels reminiscent of that night.

“I just thought you could use this as a good luck charm,” Donghyuck says, mistaking Mark’s silence for an uncomfortable one, “that way if you lose you can just say it was because of me.”

“Don’t say that,” Mark shakes his head, voice quiet and looks up at him, finds Donghyuck’s gaze to be sheepish, looking at him but almost feeling like he shouldn’t. “Most good things in my life have happened because of you.”

Donghyuck tears his gaze away at that, opts at staring at his boots instead, breath stuttering in Mark’s ears when he steps closer, closing most of the space between them but leaving enough for Donghyuck to step back if he wants to.

He doesn’t.

Mark thinks about kissing him, of course he does, it’s what he’s gotten used to giving and gotten used to receiving. It’s the easiest thing to do, the most obvious option right next to the ones warning him to flee - and he  _ could  _ do it, he  _ could _ kiss him - it’s what he’s been wanting to do ever since he had felt Jaemin’s lips against his own, needing to prove to himself that no matter what happened, no matter who Mark kissed and who kissed back, he’d always come back to Donghyuck.

Donghyuck’s looking at him now, eyes darting down to his lips and then back up like Mark wouldn’t notice.

But there’s also uncertainty in those same eyes staring back at him, a sense of familiarity but not without a tint of fear.

Mark closes the distance between them and hugs Donghyuck tight to his chest.

“Thank you,” Mark says into the collar of Donghyuck’s jacket, where the sensitive skin of his neck would be if they were someplace else like the warmth and comfort of Mark’s room, on his bed, just the two of them against the world. “I’ll make one for you too someday.” 

Mark moves to step back but Donghyuck’s arms tighten around his shoulders.

“I missed you.” He breathes out, voice wobbly, and Mark can’t help but pull him closer, hug him tighter, give him all he can with the way their little world is right now.

“I missed you too,” Mark says back and there’s such truth to his words that he feels his own skin tingle because he’s never in his life missed someone this much.

He rests his chin on Donghyuck’s shoulder and closes his eyes, relishes in the feeling of finally being pulled back where he belongs.

“You’ll do great tonight,” Donghyuck says after a while of silence between them, “you’ve given it too much not to win.”

Mark doesn’t say anything back this time, just runs his hands up and down Donghyuck’s back in what he hopes the other sees as both an attempt at comfort and an apology. 

“And also, you have a special good luck charm now,” he says, “you physically won’t be able to lose.”

Mark smiles into the fabric of Donghyuck’s jacket and feels his heart fall into a steady rhythm for the first time in half a week.

_ ‘Love,’ _ Mark hears Jaemin’s voice sing-song somewhere in the back of his head, but he doesn’t pay it much mind, just runs his hands through Donghyuck’s hair and relishes in the smell of apple-scented shampoo that very oddly makes him feel at home.

_[9:05 PM]_

Mark’s hot all over. His limbs feel heavy as he drags them across the court to follow the ball. Sweat has begun to pool above his lip and Mark takes the chance to wipe it off with the hem of his shirt when the ball goes out of bounds.

Their ball.

Johnny takes it from the referee and nods toward Mark who makes his way behind the sideline, catching the pass Johnny throws at him. 

He dribbles the ball once and takes in his options, eyes darting from one teammate to another as quickly as he can within the five seconds given.

There’s less than a minute left and their team’s exactly two points behind. Yuta’s their best bet at scoring a basket, but the number nine from the other team has done quite a good job throughout the whole game to make sure Yuta barely gets near enough to shoot.

Johnny’s a bit on the farther end of the court, but he’s taller than his defender, he could catch the ball if Mark tossed it high, but then the momentum of the ball would be much weaker and someone standing between Mark and Johnny could easily intercept it, and-

Ten breaks off from his defender in one swift motion, Mark’s name ringing out through the silenced court, and Mark doesn’t have to think twice before passing the ball to him with as much force as he can for it to not end up in the hands of an opponent. 

Everything else that follows is a blur.

There are bodies moving across the court, shoes squeaking against the lacquered floor, but the sound is barely audible over the deafening cheers from the bleachers that only grow in volume as their team moves closer to the basket.

The ball is now in the hands of Jaehyun who dribbles it over the three-point line and attempts to make a shot, but decides against it last minute, passing the ball to Yuta to his left, his defender realizing what’s happening only mid-air into a jump to block a ball that never even left the hands of his opponent. 

Jaehyun’s always been smarter than the average brawn on the court.

Yuta tries to step below the basket to make a two-pointer, but Doyoung yells out to him from behind the three-point line, free to receive the ball, and Mark knows it takes Yuta every last bit of his willpower to not risk shooting the ball and pass it to Doyoung instead. 

The timer has begun to blare the countdown for the last 10 seconds of the game, and Mark moves out of the grasp of his defender as Doyoung gets flanked from the front, blocked from making a successful shot.

Mark calls out to him in a moment of desperation, rationally knowing that he’s not good at scoring three-pointers, but his gut feeling begging him to do something, begging him to not let his team down, begging him to prove that he’s worthy enough for a successful future.

Doyoung passes the ball and Mark’s palms burn where it makes contact with his skin, and he doesn’t even let himself think, tries his best to tune out the blaring countdown and the roaring crowd, simply focus on how the ball feels familiar underneath his fingertips and how the bracelet feels foreign against the skin of his wrist - his good luck charm.

Mark jumps as high as he can, the defender missing the timing and following too late, the ball leaving his grasp in what feels like slow motion, the heads of both his teammates and opponents alike turning to follow the trajectory of his shot. 

Mark lands just in time to hear the final whistle blow and see the ball make it through the net.

The cheers that follow rise above the sound of the blaring horns, and before Mark can register what just happened, there’s arms enveloping him and praises being shouted into the air, and all Mark can do is let the feeling seep into his exhausted bones, a smile spreading across his face slowly and then all at once, making his cheeks hurt.

They won. 

Mark scored a three-pointer, beating the other team by just one point.

They fucking  _ won _ .

“Oh my god.” Mark breathes out when his tongue stops feeling heavy in his mouth, and he doesn’t catch a single coherent sentence from any of his teammates, all of them speaking too loudly, too quickly, all at once.

Soon enough the bodies draw away from him and the teams line up to say goodbye. Then the coach pulls them aside to tell them his quick run-down of the game, puts in praise and some critique here and there, and before Mark knows it, he’s being pushed into the dressing room by someone who he assumes might be Johnny, the rest of his team collapsing onto the benches or on the floor by the lockers, the adrenaline finally wearing off and being replaced with pure exhaustion.

“I can’t believe you actually made the shot.” Yuta laughs from where he’s splayed across the floor, chest rising and falling steadily.

“Have more faith in your teammates,” Jaehyun nudges him with a foot as he passes to get to his locker, swinging it open to take out a towel for his shower, turning to Mark to give him a genuine smile, “that was amazing.”

Mark smiles back at him, but then the image of Jaehyun making out with Johnny behind Liu Yangyang’s house conjures itself up in his mind suddenly, and Mark has to look away before he chokes on his own spit. 

“Imagine if you missed.” Ten says and plops down next to Mark on the bench.

Mark attempts to give the other his best glare, but he’s met with such a bright smile that Mark can’t help but to mirror it.

“What’s this?” Ten leans in to poke at the bracelet on Mark’s wrist, takes one of the colorful beads, and twists it around in his fingertips. “Never took you for the jewelry type.”

“It’s a good luck charm,” Mark says quietly, suddenly feeling vulnerable, like melted glass beginning to cool, ready to shatter in the hands of someone who pressed too hard. “Donghyuck gave it to me before the game.”

Mark expects him to laugh or to tease, maybe joke about Mark needing to get laid with someone else because the last time they had spoken about anything related to Donghyuck they weren’t on the best terms.

But instead Ten takes the little heart woven into the bracelet between his fingertips and smiles to himself softly. 

Mark doesn’t know what thoughts cross his mind at that moment, and he doesn’t dare ask, doesn’t deem it his place to put his nose in.

“I guess it worked then.”

Mark smiles at the soft tone in Ten’s voice.

“I guess it did.”

_ [9:48 PM] _

They wash up one after the other, and Mark rinses off the remnants of his stress - mind and body completely at ease when he steps out of the shower and later, out of the gym.

Most of his teammates - the ones that didn’t flee first thing after the game - follow behind him, varsity jackets draped across their shoulders, beanies or caps hiding their still-wet hair so meningitis doesn’t come knocking on their door first thing next morning.

Mark had read the texts from his friends saying that they were waiting for him in the parking lot, amongst the many emojis and keyboard smashes that followed before and after. He didn’t, however, expect to see a crowd of people the size of half his class standing under the dingy street lights that flicker from time to time.

“Hyung!” Jeno calls out when he spots them walking over, the rest of the people following Jeno’s line of sight - both familiar faces, and some he’s never seen before.

And before Mark knows it he’s pulled into a bone-crushing hug, Jeno breathing how proud he is and how cool the game was into Mark’s neck. 

“What’s all this?” Mark asks when Jeno pulls back only for Chenle to rush in for a hug with such force that Mark nearly topples over.

“I told you we were gonna be waiting with drinks,” Renjun says and raises his backpack, the contents of it clanking loudly, and Mark doesn’t even dare ask what he has stored inside that magic pouch of his.

_ [10:54 PM] _

_ Waiting with drinks _ , as it turns out, ends up meaning going over to Renjun’s place because his parents aren’t home, and bringing half the school with them along the way.

Mark sits on the stairs with a red plastic cup in his hand, straight opposite the front door, and watches as unfamiliar people keep pooling in like they belong here.

No offense to Renjun or whoever else (Jaemin) it was that helped plan this, but Mark feels quite close to falling asleep.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the life of the party?”

Mark looks up to where the voice came from and sees a stranger lowering himself to sit next to him.

Upon further examination and some inner turmoil, Mark notes that it’s the same guy from the previous party Mark attended - the one who had his jacket around Donghyuck’s shoulders and made his insides churn with some disgusting feeling that Mark can’t find in himself anymore as he looks at the guy’s warm eyes and tilted head.

“I’m Dejun.” He says and puts his hand out.

“Mark.” He replies and shakes the other’s hand awkwardly.

“Yeah, I know.” Dejun sighs to himself and puts his elbows on the step behind him. “Everyone kinda does.”

Mark just hums and downs the rest of his drink in one go because he doesn’t know what else to do.

It’s not an awkward silence that follows - Mark’s a bit too tipsy to deem anything awkward or embarrassing - but it’s a heavy kind of silence, one that Mark’s not used to hearing without feeling the need to fill it with some stupid question or cheesy pickup line.

“Thank you for not letting Donghyuck drown.” Is what Mark comes up with instead.

Dejun looks at him with raised eyebrows and then laughs to himself softly, shaking his head as if only now remembering what happened that night; maybe that’s true, maybe it’s an event that meant much to Mark but nothing quite as important to anyone else. Weird how the world works.

“It’s no problem,” he says, looks at Mark’s bracelet and then up at Mark, “are you two back together now or...” and he seems to notice the confusion on Mark’s face because he adds a small, “Xuxi told me.”

“I don’t know,” Mark groans and rests his forehead on the knees drawn up to his chest, “I just want everything to be back to normal.”

“What’s stopping you then?”

Mark turns towards the other boy to answer but clamps his mouth shut before he can get his words out. How is he supposed to explain to a stranger what he can’t even make sense of in his own head - that it’s both nothing and everything standing in the way of them; Mark and Donghyuck - the self-proclaimed soulmates with hearts so different, each half makes a perfect whole.

Like a magnet’s south pole being drawn to its north. Like an AA battery being charged positive and negative. Like cold water splashing in your stomach after you down a glass on a hot summer’s day. Like feeling raw happiness when your head hits the pillow and then waking up with a body twice as heavy and mind half as numb for a reason unknown.

Like two indecipherable things that make sense only when they’re together.

“It’s complicated.” Is what Mark settles on, because it’s true - it never used to be the way it is now.

“Every relationship is complicated, that’s just proof that the people in it are growing,” Dejun says and rests his head on the wall with Renjun’s family picture hung up on it. He tilts his chin a bit downwards and looks up at Mark through his eyelashes - quite a pretty boy. “Don’t worry about it too much, you’ll find your way back to each other eventually.”

“And what if we don’t?”

“Positive thoughts, Mark Lee,” Dejun taps his temple twice, “positive thoughts.”

“ _ Dejunnie! _ ”

Mark turns towards the familiar voice and is met with just as a familiar of a face at the bottom of the stairs, Liu Yangyang smiling up at them, no - at _ Dejun _ \- fondly, and now Mark feels stupid for trying to find any ill intent behind the simple action of Dejun giving Donghyuck his jacket to keep him warm.

“Mark!” The boy calls out when his eyes land on him, as Dejun skips down the stairs and barely lands a kiss on his clothed shoulder. “The game was amazing!” 

Mark gives him a tight smile and raises his empty cup in salute.

“Wanna join us for beer pong?”

Mark shrugs but he doesn’t even get to think of a proper excuse because Yangyang is halfway up the stairs, taking Mark by the hand and dragging him back on his feet - quite literally as well as more on the metaphorical side, and  _ wow, _ who would’ve thought Mark’s philosophy chakra would be triggered open by a cup of gin and tonic. 

“Come on,” Yangyang mutters as he takes Mark’s head between his hands and smiles at him encouragingly, patting his cheek lightly when he draws away, “your Donghyuck’s there too.”

He takes Mark by the hand once more and leads him down the stairs and into the living room, Dejun following suit, where the music is playing loud enough for Mark to feel it shake his insides and a ping pong table has been set, the cups red and filled with whatever Mark hopes won’t have him hunched over the toilet for the rest of the night.

“Mark, there you are!” Renjun’s voice rings out somewhere way too near for Mark to have just missed the sight of him as easily as he did. “I was beginning to think you went home to cry in the shower.”

“That’s reserved for when I come home after hanging out with you.” Mark quickly shoots back and hears Yangyang laugh beside him, his hand no longer closed around Mark’s wrist; instead, fingers intertwined with Dejun’s.

There are two people trailing behind Renjun - Donghyuck and Jeno - and Mark only now realizes he hadn’t properly talked to any of them since before the game. The bracelet suddenly feels as if it’s weighing him down by the wrist.

“Where’s the rest of the guys?” Mark asks, leaning in closer so they can hear him over the music.

“Jisung and Chenle left, Jaemin’s somewhere  _ doing the cannabis _ .” Renjun turns to look at the two boys besides Mark, at their conjoined hands and he seems to make some sort of connection inside his head, if the way his eyebrows draw together is anything to go by, but nothing that he expresses verbally though. “You’re here for beer pong?”

Yangyang’s whole expression seems to light up at Renjun’s words, his free hand coming to rest on Mark’s shoulder, squeezing tight enough to make Mark wince slightly. “Mark is.”

“I  _ am _ ?” Mark asks the same time Jeno and Donghyuck ask in unison, “you _ are _ ?”

“Sure you are!” Yangyang smiles at him widely, and if Mark knew him better he would’ve called him a bad name or two. But he doesn’t, so all he can do is let Yangyang pat him on the back before pushing him towards the ping pong table with a loud wish of good luck his way.

“Mark Lee up to play?” The guy at the other end quirks an eyebrow up at him, a voice inside Mark’s head whispering that it’s the same guy who sits next to him in physics class and never understands a thing. Guanheng or something.

Mark looks at where his friends are standing, a circle already beginning to form around the table and the two boys on opposite sides of it, sees Yangyang’s shit-eating grin, Dejun’s mouthed  _ sorry _ , and Jeno’s thumbs up. Donghyuck’s quirked eyebrow too, but he tries not to dwell on it too much - for his own personal well being.

“I wanna play,” Mark answers dumbly after a silence that’s been filled with shitty EDM music.

“Great!” Guanheng yells, standing at the opposite side of the table. “You know the rules?”

“Yeah!” Mark yells back at him even though his only understanding of the game comes from watching Donghyuck play cup pong on iMessage and somehow always winning.

“Great!”

“Yeah!”

Guanheng starts, landing his ball in the cup right next to Mark’s crotch, and Mark sighs as everyone around them cheers, cursing himself for agreeing to be pulled into this, because already he knows he’ll fucking suck at this game. 

The crowd erupts into cheers of  _ drink drink drink _ and who is Mark to deny them what they want, so he brings the cup to his lips.

He downs the contents of the cup in three seconds and those somehow manage to be the worst three seconds of his life, because that was definitely  _ not _ beer and the alcohol slides down into his stomach painfully slow, leaving his throat burning in its wake and his nose scrunching up in disgust.

The crowd cheers, though, so at least someone’s having fun. 

Mark takes the ball out of his now-empty cup and just fucking throws it. 

Doesn’t really come as a surprise when he misses, and the ball bounces off the table and into some girl’s hands, and thank  _ god _ she caught it, because Mark wasn’t really in the mood for crawling through the sea of people to find a ping pong ball somewhere on the floor, especially since he couldn’t see anything properly without the glasses he forgot in his duffel bag.

The crowd cheers anyway, probably too drunk to even realize what was going on, but Mark can’t really blame them, barely understands for himself.

Guanheng catches the ball effortlessly when the girl throws it back to him, and shoots it towards Mark and straight into one of his cups. 

He drinks the contents of the cup, not bothering to even dwell on what it was that he just ingested, just knowing that it, and everything else he had drunk this evening, was going to result in one hell of a hangover tomorrow.

They keep playing.

Mark even manages to get the ball inside one of Guanheng’s cups, and at that point, it feels like hours since they’ve started, but the rational, not quite drunk-not quite sober, part of his brain supplies him with the information that it has  _ not _ been hours. Mark ends up losing way too quickly for it to have been that long of a game. 

The people around them shout encouragements at him, even a few pats on the back and exactly two friendly shoulder rubs, but Mark’s not upset, so he doesn’t really bother listening closely to what they’re screaming in his ear.

“That was fucking horrible!” Yangyang says when Mark’s close enough to hear, body nearly folding in half from the force of his laughter, Dejun’s hands being the only thing keeping him upright.

“Yangyang’s saying that to make himself feel better. He’s even worse.” Dejun smiles at Mark and then pinches Yangyang’s side, the boy straightening with a yelp.

Mark looks away when the two get a bit too close for his virgin eyes and throbbing head and spots Donghyuck having somehow relocated next to him without Mark hearing or feeling anything. 

“Seems like the luck ran out,” Donghyuck says and takes Mark’s lower arm between his fingers, raising in towards his face to inspect the bracelet as if he didn’t spend hours hunched over his desk making it, and Mark knows it’s just for Donghyuck to feel the comfort of his skin under his own fingertips.

Mark thinks about kissing him again.

It’d be much easier this time, much easier than it would’ve been before the game by the bleachers, because this time Mark has enough alcohol in his system to substitute for blood and Donghyuck’s eyes seem a bit glazed over too, features softer than they are when he’s completely sober. 

He thinks back to Dejun’s words, and at this exact moment Mark realizes there’s nothing’s stopping him - Mark could lean in and kiss Donghyuck, and Donghyuck would kiss back.

But then his stomach churns painfully and bile rises up his throat and he’s choking out something that he hopes sounds like  _ I’m gonna be sick _ , and moves to where he knows the front door is.

He pushes the people out of his way as he makes his way to the door and he can’t find it in himself to feel sorry for how rude he might be perceived because Mark’s sure anyone would rather take being pushed slightly over being puked on.

Mark vaguely registers someone calling after him, but he can barely make out the sound over the loud ringing in his ears and the throbbing at his temples, and he throws the door open just in time to fall to his knees and retch straight into Renjun’s mother’s daffodils.

There’s a hand on his back not soon after and someone is crouching down next to him, and Mark tries to catch a glimpse of the person with the corner of his eye but then there’s more bile rising up his throat and Mark doubles over as he spills the remaining contents of his stomach into the already stained soil. 

Renjun’s gonna fucking  _ kill _ him.

“You’re good, that’s good, get it all out,” Mark hears Donghyuck say next to him, voice smooth and calm, despite the hand that’s trembling on Mark’s shoulder.

Mark attempts to straighten his body, head throbbing painfully enough for him to physically feel his brain pressing against the inside of his skull, Donghyuck’s hands moving to his sides to help him.

“What the  _ fuck _ was in those cups?” Donghyuck hisses up at where Yangyang’s standing with wide eyes, Dejun nowhere to be seen, and Mark knows it’s not his fault that Mark was shit enough at beer pong to get drunk off it, but his throat feels like it’s burning so he can barely get a word out.

“Do you think you can stand?” Jeno says from his right, and Mark nods even though his limbs feel like they’re not his own.

Jeno and Donghyuck each hold Mark by an arm and attempt to get him to his feet, but Mark really should’ve known that nothing in his life ever goes to plan, because his knees end up giving out and he retches some more into the wet grass by the neatly decorated garden patch.

“I’m gonna go get Renjun and Jaemin.” Jeno stands up.

“Don’t, they’re gonna kill me.” Mark groans and spits out the leftover bile in his mouth.

“Not if you kill yourself first.” Jeno squints at him and turns around to leave.

Donghyuck helps Mark sit down on the grass properly, Yangyang joining somewhere in the process - Mark can’t really tell, head feeling like it’s full of cotton and throat burnt raw. He sits down with legs extended and arms holding his weight as he leans his head back to breathe in the fresh air of an early spring night.

“Didn’t you say your friend wasn’t drinking tonight?” Donghyuck turns towards Yangyang who nods solemnly, expression devoid of any humor it was full of only minutes prior. “Okay good, he can take Mark home then.” Donghyuck states as a fact, leaving no room for protest and stands up, looking at Mark with soft enough eyes to make him coo, “you’ll be okay?”

Mark waves him off and sighs when the two boys disappear back into the house and out of sight. 

It’s silent besides the music from inside, and Mark can see his breath come out in a puff of smoke when he exhales. The grass is wet with dew under his bare palms and Mark feels it already beginning to soak his jeans where his ass rests on the front lawn of Renjun’s yard.

He closes his eyes against the night and tries breathing through his mouth to ease the horrible taste on his tongue. It doesn’t help much and he probably looks really fucking stupid from afar, but Mark can’t bring it in himself to care. 

There’s the sound of hurried footsteps coming his way, muffled by the grass, and Mark opens his eyes to see Dejun crouching down next to him with a glass of water in his hand and Mark’s never been more glad to see someone in his life.

“Where did the rest go?” The boy asks as he holds the glass up to Mark’s lips.

Mark uses the first mouthful to rinse the taste of vomit off his tongue, spitting the water out into the bushes. 

“Went to get help.” Mark rasps, putting his hands on top of Dejun’s where they’re holding the glass, the other letting go hesitantly, the glass now heavy in Mark’s hold as he takes another sip of the water.

“Feeling any better?”

Mark empties the glass and puts it down somewhere in the grass to his right, looking up to see Dejun staring at him with eyes so full of concern and kindness Mark feels like melting on the spot, absentmindedly wonders if this is how Donghyuck felt on that night at the party too.

Mark nods, “thank you.”

“Of course.” Dejun gives him a small smile and his body seems to visibly relax at Mark’s verbal confirmation that he’s alright.

They sit like that for a while - Mark has no idea how long exactly because he doesn’t have a wristwatch on him and his phone is digging painfully in his left asscheek where it’s resting in his back pocket, but he can’t muster up the strength to take it out.

This silence isn’t as heavy as the one before, and Mark doesn’t feel the need to fill it with small talk, or maybe he’s just too tired to even try.

Their quiet little serenity doesn’t last long though, because an unfamiliar figure approaches the spot where they’re sitting and comes to a halt with an unreadable expression on his face, eyes darting from Mark to Dejun and then towards the house.

“Stargazing?” He asks, voice low in his throat, and Mark has to crane his neck up to even catch a proper view of the guy’s face. “How romantic.”

“What do you want?” Dejun asks, face blank as he stares the guy down, and it’s such a different sight from the kind eyes and soft smiles Mark had directed towards him just minutes ago that it gives him whiplash.

“I’m Jisoo.” the guy says and steps closer.

“Didn’t ask,” Dejun deadpans and turns towards Mark, voice softening, “let’s go find the others, yeah?”

Mark hums, grabbing Dejun’s extended hand and lets himself be hoisted up, scooping up the glass from the ground.

Only now, standing side by side, does Mark notice that he’s quite a bit taller than Dejun; not that it matters much, because the other guy - Jisoo - towers over the both them like a leafless willow tree. 

“We’re leaving.” Dejun announces and moves to step towards the house, but the guy puts a heavy hand on his upper arm and Mark can tell from the way Dejun’s jaw clenches and his nostrils flare that it’s taking him all of his resolve not to punch the guy square in the jaw.

“Let me take that.” The guy smiles a tight smile and moves to take the glass out of Mark’s hand, and if Mark wouldn’t have been in such a pathetic state he’d know better and smash the glass straight over the guy’s head.

But he’s not - everything seems to be moving either a bit too slow or a bit too fast for his brain to catch up, and the next thing Mark knows he’s facing some random guy named Jisoo next to a bed of daffodils that he just threw up in, Dejun’s fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist and the stranger’s breath too close to his face for Mark’s liking.

“Hey, what the fuck!” Jeno’s voice sounds from somewhere, but Mark can’t really see with the guy all up in his personal space.

He’s stepping away a split second later, though, the same ugly grin painted across his face like a worn-out mask, and Mark feels sick to his stomach again.

Now that he can breathe air that’s not infused with shitty men’s cologne, Mark notices his friends walking towards them with Yangyang following suit, dragging a happy Yukhei behind him, smile faltering when he notices the expression on Mark’s face.

“Who are you?” Jeno asks, voice sharp, looking the guy up and down.

“I’m Jisoo,” he extends a hand. Nobody takes it. “We were just talking that’s all,” he says in a smooth voice, gesturing towards Mark and Dejun who’s moved closer to where Yangyang and Yukhei have come to a halt.

“You’re okay?” Donghyuck whispers as he slides into the empty space on Mark’s right, and a part of his brain, the one that’s still infused with Donghyuck, tells him to relax, that his  _ boyfriend’s _ here - he’ll take care of him.

“I think so,” Mark answers, voice low, and lets Donghyuck take his hand.

Jaemin steps in front of Jeno to stare down the guy, even if he has to crane his neck up to look him in the eye. 

“ _ We _ are leaving,” he announces like Dejun did and loops his hand around Jeno’s, motioning for the rest of them to follow along. “You should scram too. Before I cut your balls off with my pocket knife.”

The guy laughs, dry and humorless, and honestly, it sounds kinda scary to Mark, but he doesn’t say it (because that’d be embarrassing), just lets Donghyuck pull him towards the sidewalk and further away from the weirdo named Jisoo.

“I’d like to see you try,” the guy grits through clenched teeth and grabs Jaemin by the wrist, not too harsh, but hard enough to yank him and Jeno slightly backward.

“What the _ fuck  _ is your problem?” Renjun steps forward and yanks the guy’s hand off Jaemin.

“You pretty boys think you can run your mouths all you want,” he smirks to himself, and Mark doesn’t even want to begin imagining what’s going through his fucked up head right now. “I can think of a better way to put that mouth to use.”

He moves towards Renjun but Dejun’s quicker and kicks the back of the guy’s knees with enough force to have him topple over, Yangyang pulling him away by the waist and calling him a dumbass while suppressing a smile.

“Scram or I’m calling the cops on you,” Renjun says to the guy still on his knees in the grass, and his voice seems to have enough threat in it for the statement to be effective because he stands up with wobbly knees and looks at them with hands clenching at his sides, but doesn’t try anything else.

“Piece of shit!” Donghyuck turns to call out when they stop by Yukhei’s car, the older already sliding into the passenger’s seat. 

“Hyuck, leave it.” Mark whispers at him, nudging him towards the back door Jaemin had swung open.

“What the fuck gives you the right to go around doing and saying whatever disgusting shit you want?”

“Donghyuck, it’s not that serious-”

“No, tell me! Tell me, I wanna know,” the boy holds his ground even as the guy takes a step forward.

“Donghyuck, _let’s_ _go_,” Mark tries taking his hand, but the other moves it out of his grasp to point an accusing finger at the man.

“Lay a hand on any of my friends again and I swear I’ll break each of your filthy fingers one by one.”

Donghyuck looks confident in his words like he could actually break a single bone in a body without throwing up at the sound of it, but the guy doesn’t know him that well so he just raises his hands up in defense and shrugs with an easy smile on his face.

Mark pulls Donghyuck towards the door, and this time the younger complies, following Mark’s lead easily, as he always does. 

The rest of their friends have already squeezed themselves inside Yukhei’s jeep, only Renjun staying behind because he did, for better or worse, live here.

Mark’s one foot inside the car when the guy decides to speak up.

“The ones like you are my favorite,” he says and Donghyuck stills where he’s hunched down to enter the car, “all bark no bite, can’t even own up to their words-”

Donghyuck doesn’t even let the guy finish, straightens his body, turns around and punches him straight on the nose.

_[11:37 PM]_

Yukhei drives them home one by one, Jeno getting off a couple of blocks away from Renjun’s house because he has an inner realization that he can’t just leave Renjun alone with what just went down. 

Yangyang and Dejun get off next and, surprisingly, it’s not at Yangyang’s house like Mark had expected. Instead, they stop by a little red brick home with the roof painted blue and flowers planted on both sides of the pathway leading to the front door.

Mark thanks Dejun once again, mind a bit too fuzzy from dozing off repeatedly throughout the ride to properly phrase what he’s thankful for, but the way Dejun smiles at him makes Mark believe he understands. 

Jaemin gets off afterward, exiting the car only after Mark and Donghyuck have both assured him enough times that they’ll be fine without his help, and that he’s in no state to be trying to help anyone anyways.

Mark’s somewhere halfway into a dream, head resting on Donghyuck’s shoulder, when the car stops and Yukhei softly tells them that they’ve arrived. 

When Mark raises his head to look out the tinted window of the backseat, he notices that they’re in front of Donghyuck’s house, and his heart speeds up a little bit on its own accord because he hasn’t set foot in here for over a month and he’s afraid it will feel as if he’s intruding.

Both Donghyuck and Mark thank Yukhei for the ride, and Donghyuck promises to make it up for him sometime in the future, to which Yukhei just waves him off and tells him not to worry about it. 

They make their way into the house through the backdoor that Donghyuck always keeps unlocked for when he comes home late on nights like these. It makes less noise than the front door, and the stairs are near, leading right up to Donghyuck’s bedroom.

Mark keeps his shoes on, as does Donghyuck - to not let his mother notice when she wakes up to get a glass of water in the middle of the night - and they make their way upstairs. Donghyuck holds Mark by the waist as they do so, and Mark doesn’t have it in himself to tell the other he can walk on his own, enjoying the warmth of a familiar body pressed against him.

Donghyuck rummages through his closet for spare clothes to give Mark to sleep in, and when he finally hands him a pair of shorts and a hoodie, Mark notices, even with his sleepy brain, that both of the clothing items are those of his that Donghyuck had taken it upon himself to steal out of Mark’s wardrobe.

They settle into Donghyuck’s bed made for one, and Mark lets Donghyuck pull him flush against his chest, wraps his arms around his waist, and slots a leg between Donghyuck’s - the two of them fitting together like puzzle pieces.

Mark falls asleep to his ear pressed against Donghyuck’s chest, feeling it rise and fall steadily, listening to the slow beating of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/LOVHYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sunhyuc)


	7. i understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all i have to say is- for the sake of my sanity please ignore the fact that literally no college sends out acceptance/rejection letters in MARCH
> 
> other than that: enjoy!!

_ [6:25 AM] _

Mark wakes with the recently acquired feeling of a headache splitting his head open in half and a familiar body sleeping soundly next to him, feeling a sort of nostalgia of past mornings spent waking up along with the sun and thinking that a glimmer of it managed to slip into the vicinity of Donghyuck’s bedroom and find purchase along the smooth gold of Donghyuck’s skin. 

Mark blinks back the sleep from his eyes and finds the image of a cold night behind his eyelids - one he rubs away with the backs of his hands, but one that still lingers in the back of his head as a quiet reminder of how everything went wrong. 

But it’s different now, Mark tells himself.

This time the room is painted warm shades of yellow instead of stale shades of blue, sunlight warm on his bare back where it’s facing the window with the curtains open because Mark wasn’t himself last night and Donghyuck liked to feel the morning light filter through the dirty window glass because it made him feel at home. 

It’s different now because Mark feels less guilty and more content as he watches Donghyuck’s chest rise and fall in time with his steady breaths.

Mark cranes his neck to look over Donghyuck’s bare shoulder and catch a glimpse of the bright red clock sitting on his bedside table. A bit over six. Still plenty of time until either of their classes start, and Mark’s pretty sure he set his alarm for 7:00 AM so that sound shouldn’t blare throughout the entire house for quite a while still.

So Mark settles on doing what any teenager fallen helplessly deep into love would, and stares at the pretty boy sleeping opposite him.

Donghyuck’s cheek is squished by the pillow, lips forming a full pout, face warm and eyelashes resting lightly on his cheeks. One of Donghyuck’s hands is under the pillow, disappearing at the elbow and coming back up with just the very tips of his fingers visible; his other hand, though, rests in front of him, fingers clutching at the sheets in a light grip, and Mark takes exactly ten seconds to decide that he’s had enough of being afraid, and takes Donghyuck’s hand into his own, feels the warmth of it press against his palm, against his ribs and then further in against his lungs, curling around his heart.

Donghyuck stirs at that; inhales deeper than he had before, eyelashes fluttering where his eyes still rest closed, pink tongue darting out to lick at his lips. 

Donghyuck murmurs something into the pillow as he turns to bury his face in it and stays like that for a while - an endearing habit Mark had noticed for the first time when they slept on Renjun’s pull-out couch one night after half-assing their middle school science project on the solar system and still managing to get the highest points because Donghyuck’s always had a smart mouth.

“Good morning,” Mark says when Donghyuck faces him and cracks one eye open against the warm light, can’t help the smile that finds its way to his lips, and warms him from inside out.

“How’s your head?” Is what Donghyuck responds with instead of greeting Mark back, but Mark decides he doesn’t mind too much because the next second Donghyuck’s reaching out with the hand that’s not resting in Mark’s palm and running his fingers through Mark’s hair, smoothing it to the sides, away from his eyes.

“It’s okay,” Mark mumbles when Donghyuck draws his hand back, voice still groggy with sleep, cheeks turning pink against the warmth of sunlight, against the warmth of Donghyuck’s gaze. “I’ve lived through worse.”

Donghyuck smiles at that, but his expression goes sour right after, and Mark’s heart suddenly pangs heavily in his chest.

“What?” He asks and moves to draw away his hand because maybe he overstepped a boundary, but then again they never really established any of those for when they’re not together because that wasn’t supposed to happen for a long time, if ever.

“Last night,” Donghyuck begins and doesn’t give Mark the chance to retract his hand, moving to take it between his own two palms, pressing them closer to his chest, close enough that Mark can feel the warmth of Donghyuck’s body, the warmth of Donghyuck’s heart beating inside his chest. “Did the man  _ do _ anything to you?”

The question catches Mark so off guard, he stays blinking at Donghyuck’s worried expression for too long to be considered casual; but then something akin to relief washes over him, and Mark lets out a sigh because Donghyuck’s not mad at him, Donghyuck’s not indifferent, Donghyuck  _ cares _ .

“He- no, he didn’t do anything.”

“Are you _ sure _ though?”

“I wasn’t that drunk, Hyuck,” Mark draws his eyebrows together because even if some of the creases on Donghyuck’s forehead have smoothed out, there’s still one too many present. “Why are you asking like that?” Mark tilts his head downwards and then a realization hits him with such force he rises up on his elbow. “Did he do something to  _ you _ ?”

“No!” Donghyuck yells, except it’s a loud whisper, eyes suddenly wide and hands moving away from Mark’s to push his body back down on the bed. “You just looked scared, that’s all,” Donghyuck adds quietly when Mark’s settled down next to him, and if he’s closer than before, neither of them mentions it. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide something like that from me.”

Mark’s heart breaks a little bit inside his chest, inside this quiet room, because how the hell did they end up like this. 

“I would never,” Mark says and thinks he genuinely means it, moves his head closer in an attempt to get Donghyuck to meet his eyes. “He didn’t do anything to me, nor did he do anything to Dejun - I wouldn’t lie to you about those kinds of things, even if our relationship has been…  _ modified _ for the past couple of months.”

Donghyuck keeps worrying his lip between his teeth for a while before he raises his head to Meet Mark’s eyes.

“So you’re saying I gave the guy a broken nose for nothing.”

Mark shoves Donghyuck with barely any strength and both of them erupt in a fit of giggles that stops only at the sound of a notification being delivered to Donghyuck’s phone.

Said boy groans and rolls over to take a look at the phone charging on his bedside table, exposing the better part of his bare back for Mark to drag his eyes over, gaze jumping from mole to mole, tracing constellations on the canvas of Donghyuck’s honey skin. 

“Jaemin wants to know if you’re alive.” Donghyuck rolls back to face Mark, phone in hand, and Mark has to tear his gaze away as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.

“Tell him I think I am.”

Donghyuck hums and types the response into his phone, hitting send and staring back up at Mark. 

He looks so soft against the backdrop of white sheets, with the early morning hue painting his face in all warm tones on the palette and Mark stupidly thinks that it’d be good to have a color swatch with him right now so he could compare every shade of golden illuminating Donghyuck’s body and write them all down somewhere for further reference; like if he wanted to paint a portrait someday.

Warm brown eyes and long lashes casting shadows over full cheeks. Hair that’s just as soft as it looks, currently sticking up in every direction, falling into his eyes and covering his ears. A face that’s littered with specks of stardust from the very night’s sky, sharp lines where neck turns to shoulder and soft creases where cheek meets jaw. 

Golden, golden, golden.

Everything but Donghyuck’s lips, Mark would paint golden. 

Red and pink, and soft and still  _ warm _ \- that’s how Mark would paint them if he could. He’d like to feel them after all this time, too, if he could.

And maybe he could.

It’s turned dead quiet now, both of their breathing seeming to have stopped to leave more space to hear, to see, to feel. 

It’s a foreign concept to Mark - feeling hesitation when it comes to Donghyuck, but Mark thinks that at least it’s not as bad as it used to be when he could barely even look the other in the eyes without feeling either anger or hurt.

Instead of wondering about every possible way to break Donghyuck’s heart twice as bad as Donghyuck broke his in ugly fits of rage, Mark now gets to wonder if Donghyuck’s lips will taste like cherry chapstick like they used to before, when they kissed at  _ good morning _ and at  _ goodnight _ and at every instance when the love they had couldn’t stay contained in the mere spaces between their hearts and ribs.

Something clicks inside Mark’s head and he simply lets his eyes fall shut, face inching closer towards Donghyuck’s, and he can nearly feel the warmth of the other’s lips, when suddenly the same god damn text notification sound blares through the silent room, and both of them pull back as if burnt. 

“I’ll go to the bathroom.” Mark chokes out and moves to get out of bed even if the morning air is cold enough to leave a trail of goosebumps where it makes contact with his skin, but he doesn’t even give a shit, just needs to hide the redness blossoming on his cheeks and painting the tips of his ears red. There has to be _ some _ dignity left by the end of this morning.

“I’ll go after you.” Donghyuck’s voice sounds from behind him, suspiciously muffled as if his face is shoved in a pillow like it was before.

But Mark doesn’t turn around to look, just opens the door to the bathroom and then slams it shut with a bit too much force than he intended to.

Mark sits down on the toilet with the lid down, head in hands, because he doesn’t even need to pee, but at some point during his inner monologue about how fucking embarrassing he is, Mark finds a smile creeping up on his face - one he can’t make go away - because they’re  _ good _ \- him and Donghyuck... they’re going to be okay.

_[3:47 PM]_

“Why am I here again?” Renjun asks as he watches Mark pathetically try to spot a difference between two very similar shades of red bracelet beads.

“Oh my god, these come in  _ cat shapes? _ ” Jaemin sounds from somewhere behind them, and Mark doesn’t even need to turn around to know how excited Jaemin must look right now.

“Go tell him he doesn’t need those,” Mark says without looking up, and Renjun groans in response, but Mark sees him move with the corner of his eye anyways.

Mark’s already gotten a bag of pink bracelet beads as the ones representing him, and also some white ones, because Renjun’s apparently the Socrates of color theory, and Mark’s not allowed to put together the colors pink and red because  _ they’ll make Donghyuck wanna gauge his eyes out every time he has to wear your bracelet because he wants to be a good boyfriend. _

Mark had to remind him that he and Donghyuck were technically still not boyfriends, and Renjun told him to shut up because he sounded stupid enough to make Renjun want to leave him alone with Jaemin. _ _

“They’re  _ overpriced _ , Jaem.”

“No, they’re  _ cute _ , Renjunnie.”

“You don’t even wear bracelets.”

“Because they don’t have cats on them.”

Mark tunes their conversation out, opting to focus on deciding which bag of bracelet beads to get, and giving up not even a minute after because fuck the color codes, those are literally the same shades of red and his eyes hurt from all the strain already.

Mark drops one of the bags inside the shopping basket that he _ really _ didn’t need because he only came here for things small enough to carry in one open palm, but he likes the feeling of swinging the basket back and forth as he walks and hitting Jaemin’s ass on ‘accident’ every time the other stops to ogle at something shiny or even vaguely resembling the shape of an animal.

“Didn’t take you for a handmade jewelry type of guy.”

Mark turns his head to the left and has to crane his neck up to meet a pair of friendly eyes staring down at him.

“Oh, Yukhei! Hi!” Mark awkwardly fumbles with the basket in his hands because he doesn’t know if he should go in for a hug or if that would be too intimate, maybe a handshake, but no, that’d be too formal and make everything weird; so Mark just settles on a little wave and another mumbled  _ hi _ as he has to tear his gaze away and pretend he’s interested at the various colored bracelet beads on display because his face is turning as red as the colors in his basket right now.

Yukhei just laughs at that, but Mark finds that it doesn’t make him feel awkward.

“What are you making?”

Yukhei has to gesture towards the basket Mark’s clutching in his hand so tightly his knuckles turn white for Mark’s brain to process the question.

“Oh, me? I’m making a bracelet for Hyuck-  _ Donghyuck _ .” Mark raises the basket slightly and Yukhei takes a peek inside it, meeting Mark’s eyes with a toothy smile. “He made one for me so I’m making one for him too.”

“Is pink his favorite color? That’s so cute.”

Mark blinks up at Yukhei, then down at the basket, then back up at Yukhei again, “it’s mine actually.”

The taller boy stares at him then, almost as if not knowing whether what Mark said was meant as a joke that landed badly or if he was being dead serious. 

Yukhei laughs anyways because his heart seems to be too bright to not shine through his personality. 

“That’s cute, you’re cute. I’m glad you two are on good terms again.” Yukhei says and turns to examine the shelves in front of them from top to bottom, eyebrows drawing together when he seems to not find what he was looking for. “Where’s the sewing supplies?” 

“Uh,” Mark whips his head around like he’s a local employee, pointing somewhere in the general direction of the opposite aisles, “I think we saw them by the fabric section somewhere.” He says and then quirks an eyebrow up. “Do you sew in your free time or something?”

“No!” Yukhei exclaims and belts out a single  _ HA _ before going quiet and gesturing to the shirt he has on under his jacket. “I lost one of my shirt buttons at the party. Not  _ this _ shirt, you know, but another one - the black one I had on last night.” 

“Doesn’t your mom have any sewing supplies?”

“I live alone, man.” Yukhei deadpans but then squeezes Mark’s shoulder before Mark can even register the foreign expression on the other’s face. “Anyways, was nice meeting you. Good luck picking out what will look best on Donghyuck.”

“You make it sound like I’m picking out a wedding ring,” Mark says before Yukhei gets far enough for him to have to raise his voice, smiling despite himself, because the other seemed to have that kind of effect on people.

“Maybe one day you will be!” Yukhei belts out through the entire store and disappears behind one of the tall shelves separating the aisles from one another.

Mark ducks his head down with his cheeks burning slightly, and moves to find Jaemin and Renjun.

_ Maybe one day you will be. _

_ [2:15 AM] _

Mark has no idea how long Donghyuck spent making the bracelet for him because he never asked and the other never told, but Mark’s already three hours in, and he’s sure it definitely wasn’t this long. 

He originally watched the first youtube tutorial that had popped up after he typed in  _ how to make bracelets  _ on which all the lady making the bracelet did, was put the beads on the thread and connect the two ends with she was done. But then another video popped up on the suggested side that showed a bracelet with god damn  _ flowers _ on it, and of course, Mark has to always make his life as hard as possible, so he watched it and here he was - eyes burning, back sore and fingers numb. 

If he ends up dying of exhaustion at school tomorrow, Mark hopes Donghyuck will at least wear his bracelet to the funeral.

_ [11:50 AM] _

Mark decides, upon seeing all six of his friends by the lockers in the morning, that he’s going to save himself the embarrassment and endless future teasing, and just give Donghyuck the bracelet after classes instead of before, like Mark had originally planned. 

It’s an easy enough task - Mark’s always been a pretty patient person.

But sometime after the second period when he’s moving swiftly through the hallways to meet with his friends at the library, Mark catches sight of Donghyuck alone; except he’s not alone, Mark realizes as he rounds a corner and quickly moves back before the other boy manages to catch sight of him. 

It’s a senior from the football team that’s with Donghyuck, standing with his head tilted and his hands shoved inside his pockets, ogling Donghyuck in a way that makes Mark’s chest pang painfully. 

It’s not even the way the guy’s looking at Donghyuck that prompts Mark to slam his forehead against the ugly green wall of the hallway, but the way Donghyuck’s giggling at whatever the guy is saying, tucking his hair behind his ear and swinging slightly on the soles of his feet - back and forth, back and forth.

Suddenly the skin of his wrist feels itchy, where it’s covered by beads of every color and a heart between two letters, and the handmade bracelet in his bag feels as if it’s weighing his entire body down.

Mark takes out the phone from his jean pocket in an act that can only be classified as desperation, and types out a text to Donghyuck.

**me:**

meet me behind the gym

it’s urgent

Donghyuck’s phone dings, the noise resonating through the otherwise empty hallway, but it doesn’t make the guy stop talking about whatever game he was at last Friday.

Mark takes his chances and sneaks a peek over the corner and sees Donghyuck bow his head and smile sheepishly as he takes his phone out and the guy’s talking eventually dies down when he seems to realize that Donghyuck’s not really paying much attention anymore.

“Who’s that?” He asks instead and attempts to add a laugh at the end, but it comes out sounding quite desperate, but Mark can’t even blame him - having Donghyuck’s full attention on you was a feeling you could get nearly addicted to, and having it forced away felt like a gaping hole was left where your heart used to be.

“Just my - uh, friend,” Donghyuck smiles up at him apologetically and it’s clear their conversation has come to an end, “I should go find him. He says it’s urgent.”

“Ah, well, I suppose if it’s urgent…” The guy sighs dramatically and steps out of the way with arms gesturing towards the exit.

“Thank you,” Donghyuck laughs one of his bubbly laughs and steps past the other. 

“I’ll see you around.”

“You will, don’t worry.”

Donghyuck doesn’t spare him with a response, only a half-assed wave as he walks towards the exit in large strides, unlocking his phone he had tightly clutched in his hand and typing something out.

What it is, Mark doesn’t have to wonder too much, because his phone vibrates in his hand and a text notification pops up on his lockscreen.

**hyuck:**

be there in 2

_[12:02 AM]_

Donghyuck _ is _ there in two minutes time, just like he said he would be, and instead, it’s Mark who arrives later because his literature teacher managed to get a hold of him when she was passing him in the hallway leading to the main exit and tell him about how good his last week’s essay was. Mark had to thank her and politely excuse himself like he didn’t know his essay was brilliant - he spent five fucking hours to get it right, it better have been nothing short of perfect.

Donghyuck’s leaning against the brick wall of the school building, arms wrapped tightly around himself because he doesn’t have his jacket on, and even if February is already bleeding into March, the wind’s still cold enough to chill you to the bone.

This is the same spot they met when it was still winter and snow was covering every inch of the grass that was now growing bright green. 

How different things have become since then...

“Actually, I lied.” Is what Mark says to break the silence and it sure does get Donghyuck’s attention.

“About what, dumbass, what the fuck? I was worried.” 

“Sorry, it wasn’t urgent,” Mark says but he doesn’t really sound sorry, even to his own ears, slings his backpack off his shoulders.

Donghyuck only huffs but uncrosses his arms and moves towards where Mark’s crouched on the ground, rummaging through his backpack. He pokes Mark’s knee with his sneaker and Mark grabs his ankle and pretends to jank it down.

Donghyuck yelps and then laughs, and then lightly kicks Mark’s ass with his foot. 

“I wanted to give you this.” Mark clears his throat and stands up, leaving the backpack on the ground, hand extended and palm facing up - bright red and pink bracelet contrasting with the pale skin of his hand.

Donghyuck blinks down at it like his brain can’t quite comprehend what he’s seeing, and Mark has a brief moment to think he really  _ did  _ mess up with the color scheme for this, but then Donghyuck’s moving towards him and pulling Mark into what he expects to be a bone-crushing hug but ends up being a soft embrace that feels so welcome and missed that Mark feels like turning into putty on the spot.

“I didn’t think you’d remember.” Donghyuck murmurs into the crook of Mark’s neck, warm breath sending shivers down his spine.

“Of course I remembered. I promised, didn’t I?” 

Donghyuck pulls back, pink dusting his cheeks, “well, you didn’t actually  _ promise _ .”

“Yeah, but I said I’ll make it,” Mark lets Donghyuck take the bracelet from his hand and slide it around his wrist. “I try to mean the things I say.”

_ The good things. _ Mark wants to add because Donghyuck’s heart is made of gold and it doesn’t deserve ugly words tainting his insides black, and if Mark was gifted the choice to take them back, he would in a heartbeat.

He doesn’t say it though, because he looks up to meet Donghyuck’s gaze, and the boy is staring at him with such warm eyes and such a pretty smile on his face that Mark feels his insides fill and drip with liquid honey.

“Do you like it?” Mark asks, voice cracking at the end because he feels bare under the intensity of Donghyuck’s gaze.

There’s pink dusting Donghyuck’s cheeks, but Mark supposes it’s been present since the beginning of their conversation, only blooming further across his face and only deeper in its shade of red.

“I do.” Donghyuck quietly replies, words whisked away with a gust of wind that comes their way and sweeps through the alley, leaving both their bodies shivering and their hair tousled in its wake. 

He grows unusually quiet then, eyes fitting from one point to the next, never staying in one place for too long - he looks at Mark, his eyes, his lips, the mole on his cheek. Then at Mark’s hands clasped tightly together in front of him, rubbing together to create even a bit of warmth, the bracelet peeking out from under his sweatshirt. Then at the bracelet resting on his own wrist, at the juncture where arm meets palm.

Then back up at Mark, looking at him,  _ really _ looking at him - like Mark’s a sight he’s seeing for the first time after spending his whole life with his eyes trained to the ground.

And then he’s kissing him.

It happens so quickly and so out of the blue that Mark doesn’t even get to close his eyes or wrap his hands around Donghyuck’s waist to pull him close and steady, or part his lips to let Donghyuck know that  _ he wants this too _ , and then he’s pulling away, mistaking Mark’s surprise for a lack of want.

But he’s so so wrong, because Mark had met Donghyuck on the very first day of middle school when his voice was still high in pitch and his eyes were too big for his god damn head, and Mark’s spent the better time since then just  _ wanting wanting wanting _ .

He’s never quite wanted anyone like this.

So Mark moves before any of them get the chance to flee, and plants both his hands on either sides of Donghyuck’s head, ears cold where his fingers touch them; Mark closes the distance between them with half a step, and they kiss once again.

It’s a proper kiss this time.

Mark moves one hand to rest on Donghyuck’s hip and slides the other down to the back of his neck, feeling the other boy’s fluttering heartbeat under his thumb, resting right above his pulse point.

The lines of Donghyuck’s body smooth out under Mark’s touch, mind and body going autopilot because they’ve done this so many times it feels easier to start again than it ever did to stop. 

Donghyuck’s lips  _ do _ taste like cherry chapstick, though the taste’s barely there by the time they pull back to catch their breaths and calm their fluttering hearts. 

“Be my boyfriend, Lee Donghyuck?” Mark whispers, doesn’t trust his voice not to break if he spoke loudly, even if he wants to scream it from the rooftops, traces Donghyuck’s jaw with his thumb.

“Only if you’ll be mine, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck whispers back and kisses him again.

_ [6:31 PM] _

Ever since Donghyuck kissed Mark for the first time on that fated Wednesday afternoon and  _ kept _ kissing him until they lost track of time and Jeno had to come looking for them and tell them they’ve already missed ten minutes of class, Mark found it hard to stop.

They kissed every morning before class - quick pecks on the lips before each of them hurried in their respective directions.

They kissed every evening after Mark had scrubbed off all his sweat from practice in the shower - slow and lazy kisses because both of them were too exhausted to take it any further and falling asleep while cuddling seemed like the better option.

They kissed every other night at some random schoolmate’s party - hot and hurried kisses, all tongue, teeth clacking, noses bumping together, but neither of them cared because everything felt so hot and sticky and Donghyuck was panting against Mark’s neck, moving his hips against the leg slotted between his.

They kissed every morning after waking up from a deep night’s sleep when the sunlight was pouring through the windows in a warm flow - sweet and languid kisses, smiles too bright to properly connect their lips, mouths pressed against every inch of skin bared against the cold morning air because if anyone asked Mark to define the word love, it would be this.

It was so easy to fall back into old habits with Donghyuck that the feeling made Mark wonder how the hell did he ever manage to survive with a familiar presence by his side and a warm hand against his. Sweet lips against his too, but Mark would rather not talk about that.

“Jesus, can you two  _ stop _ ?” Renjun groans from the opposite side of the booth.

Donghyuck pulls back from Mark’s lips, from his embrace to glare at Renjun, and Mark pathetically chases after his lips with his own, sees Renjun roll his eyes at the motion with the corner of his eye.

“Is there something you want to share with the class, Renjun-ssi?” Donghyuck raises a cocky eyebrow at him, fingers interlocking with Mark’s under the table, away from prying eyes.

Jisung sees and pretends to gag in response anyways.

“I’d like to let everyone know that two of my friends have been sucking face for ten minutes straight and it’s making me lose my fucking appetite.”

Jaemin nudges Renjun with a boot under the table. “Would you prefer that they sulk over  _ not _ being able to suck face for ten minutes straight instead?”

“No.” Renjun replies immediately and gives a full-bodied shudder, and it’s quite dramatic if you ask Mark, but he lets them poke fun at them anyways.

“That’s what I thought.” Jaemin scoffs and then turns to Mark and Donghyuck, giving them his signature toothy grin. “The class is very happy you two are back together and wishes you many more years of a happy relationship.”

“We better be invited to the wedding,” Jeno says from beside Jaemin and manages to steal a fry from Renjun sitting on the far end of the booth, staring out the window as if trying to spot god somewhere in the fog that’s begun to form.

Mark splutters slightly, cheeks growing warm at the implications, a soft realization hitting him, as he watches Donghyuck smile at Jeno’s words, that he wouldn’t be too upset at spending the rest of his life with him.

“Behave and I’ll think about it,” Donghyuck says and winks, turning back to press a kiss on the corner of Mark’s lips.

Mark pulls him in properly by the back of his neck and ignores the fry Renjun sends flying their way.

_ [2:46 PM] _

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon that Mark’s spent in Donghyuck’s warm embrace when he hasn’t been hunched over his desk, working on his book report, when Jaemin comes barging into his bedroom with his hair disheveled and panting.

He has an envelope in his hand.

“No way…” Mark softly pushes Donghyuck’s body off of his from where the boy has been laying between Mark’s legs, playing Mario Kart on his switch and making Mark watch to prove he was a master at it.

“Yes fucking way.” Jaemin moves to meet Mark halfway through the room and places the envelope in Mark’s twitching palm.

“Was this the only one?” Mark looks up at the younger, suddenly feeling his breaths get caught up halfway up his throat.

“Yeah, I checked the whole mailbox,” Jaemin puts a hand on Mark’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort, but then retreats it to pull at his hair in a gesture of distress, and then lets his hands fall limply at his sides. “But this one was your top choice, wasn’t it?”

Mark nods wordlessly, limbs suddenly feeling heavy, so he backtracks to the bed and plops down on it with such disgrace that Donghyuck’s body shifts at the impact.

“What’s this about?” He asks and crawls towards Mark to sit beside him on his knees, eyebrows furrowing as he reads the text printed on the envelope. “ _ Seoul National University _ \- wait, you applied _ for uni? _ ”

“Of course I applied for uni, I finish school in like two months.” Mark’s voice comes out a bit too harsh even for his own ears so he turns his head to meet Donghyuck’s eyes, voice coming out quieter when he adds on, “I’m really hoping to get into this one.”

Donghyuck’s expression softens at that, body leaning forward to press a kiss on Mark’s clothed shoulder. 

Jaemin sits down on Mark’s other side, much softer in his movements, and places a comforting hand on his left knee.

Neither of them says anything, which Mark is grateful for - it allows him to gather his scrambled thoughts into one place in his mind, and attempt to quiet them so his breaths come out more even and his hands stop shaking in his lap.

Nothing Mark could say or do would change the contents of the envelope in his hands - his faith has been decided by whoever runs Seoul National University and typed out by some random secretary who probably gets paid only a bit above minimum wage. 

Now all that’s left is for Mark to find out.

He tears the envelope open with careful fingers, not wanting to accidentally rip the contents of it in an anxious act of carelessness, and slides the folded paper out and into his lap.

Jaemin takes the now empty envelope into his own hands, away from Mark’s sight, so all he has to focus on is the letter determining the outcome of his future currently in his hands.

With a deep breath, Mark unfolds it and begins reading.

“Dear Mark Lee,” he reads out loud, eyes skimming over the text quickly in a search for the sentence he’s been dreading ever since he sent in his application two weeks ago.

“We are pleased to inform,” Mark’s breath catches in his throat, “that you’ve been accepted into Seoul National- I got in.”

Mark turns to Donghyuck who’s still staring at the letter in Mark’s hands, and then to Jaemin who’s staring at him with wide eyes and his mouth agape.

“I got in,” Mark repeats dumbly.

“You got in.” Donghyuck whispers from beside him.

“You  _ fucking got in _ !” Jaemin yells loud enough for the neighbors to probably hear before pulling him into a hug so tight, Mark feels the air leave his lungs and then enter back in when he’s finally released from Jaemin’s hold.

“Oh my god, I need to tell the others.” He gasps, standing up and fishing out his phone from his pocket. “We are definitely getting piss drunk tonight to celebrate.”

Mark laughs awkwardly but he has an inkling that Jaemin probably wasn’t kidding, mind too fuzzy to talk him out of it, and then he’s disappearing behind the bedroom door anyways and Mark doesn’t get the chance to get a single word out.

“I’m proud of you,” Donghyuck says with a soft smile when Mark hangs his head between his shoulders and shakes it in disbelief.

“I’m a little bit proud of myself too.” Mark shrugs and falls backward onto the bed with a soft thud.

“You should be  _ a lot _ proud of yourself, not  _ a little. _ ” Donghyuck leans down on a propped up elbow and pushes hair out of Mark’s eyes, fingertips grazing his cheek in a fluttering touch - barely there.

“Guess it’s all thanks to my good luck charm.” Mark smiles up at the boy, raising his hand to showcase the pretty bracelet around his wrist even if Donghyuck knows that it’s there - has been there ever since he gifted it to Mark before the game.

Donghyuck shakes his head and his eyelashes flutter as he leans over Mark, the light coming from the window suddenly gone, just a pretty face of a pretty boy as the only sight to behold, and Mark supposes he doesn’t really mind seeing Donghyuck like this for the rest of his life.

“This one’s all your doing.” Donghyuck pokes Mark’s chest, right in the middle where the two sides of his ribs connect. “Sorry for not being there for you when you had to make all these choices.” He adds in a smaller, softer voice, hand drawing back from Mark’s chest, but Mark wraps his fingers around the younger’s wrist before he can manage to move away.

“Stop apologizing. This was my fault as much as yours, and you told me not to say sorry for things we couldn’t change anymore.” Mark says.

“I know but-”

“No buts,” Mark uncurls Donghyuck’s fingers from where they’ve formed a fist, and presses his palm flat against his chest, right above where his heart beats steadily in his chest. “You’re my boyfriend  _ right now _ , Lee Donghyuck, and I don’t care about whatever choices I had to make without you by my side, as long as you’re with me for the future ones to come.”

“I’ll try.” Donghyuck says and he sounds breathless.

“I know you will,” Mark gives Donghyuck a small smile and takes his hand to press his lips against the warm skin of his palm, lips drawing back to intertwine their fingers. “I will too.”

*

Jaemin’s plan of getting piss drunk tonight doesn’t really work out, because Jeno’s the first one of their friends to come over, besides Jaemin who’s already been fiddling with the wine bottle and staring at it longingly for the past thirty minutes, and Donghyuck who’s been pressed against Mark’s side on the living room couch, head on his shoulder and phone displaying some youtube video related to gaming that Mark couldn’t care less about but pretends to enjoy because he knows Donghyuck does. 

And, well, Jeno doesn’t really arrive in the most party-ready mood.

“Hyung, I’m so proud of you.” Jeno near-sobs when Mark opens the door for him, collapsing into his arms and staining the collar of his T-shirt with his tears.

Mark sees Jaemin run a palm down his face, and all Mark can do is send him a sheepish smile, and wrap his arms around Jeno’s waist.

Following Jeno, their friends arrive one by one, filing into Mark’s living room and finding their own little space to occupy like puzzle pieces fitting in to make the bigger picture come together.

And so they sit in a comfortable atmosphere, the TV playing some random suggested video in the background from when Chenle wanted to show them some cool video on YouTube that turned out to not actually be as cool as he remembered it being. 

The wine bottle has been long forgotten, having rolled under some couch or table because Jaemin’s not cradling it like a newborn anymore, instead, resting his head in Jisung’s lap, the older pretending to hate it at first, but relaxing at Jaemin’s presence not long after, hand reaching out to pat the other boy’s hair every so often.

They talk about everything and nothing, jumping from one topic to the next, ranging from the vitality of bees in the society, to how flat Jaemin’s ass has gotten over the past couple of weeks, to how Mark’s graduating soon and how much they’re actually gonna miss him.

Sometime later they’ve somehow reached a point where Jeno attempts to do a handstand, nearly collapsing on their glass coffee table when his arms give out, and Donghyuck laughs so hard, Mark can’t stop himself from joining and thinks to himself that the sound church bells at church never brought heaven on earth as much as this does.

“Do you wanna head up to bed?” Mark later asks in a quiet voice when Donghyuck’s grown still by his side.

Chenle’s dozed off on the other side of the couch and the rest have lowered their voices as they talk about their plans for the future and that they hope that whatever comes their way, it won’t ever break the seven of them apart.

“No, I’m okay here.” Donghyuck murmurs and snuggles deeper into the crook of Mark’s elbow. “I feel good like this.”

Mark hums and presses a kiss to the crown of Donghyuck’s head, because he understands, feels like this, too; like a stray wolf finding home.

They continue talking, voices uncharacteristically quiet, their personalities toned down, like embers after a fire has burned out, still glowing faintly red and feeling slightly warm, but close to fading out until the spark of a new day lights them up again.

Mark feels his eyelids grow heavier by the minute, Donghyuck’s breathing evening out against his side, and all Mark can feel is  _ content _ .

His friends all have moved down to sit on the carpet cross-legged, shushing each other whenever a word is said too loudly, probably thinking Mark’s fallen asleep too because of how dark the room’s become, the only light coming from the lamp in the hallway, casting a faintly warm glow on the living room, on the seven boys sitting in it, feeling like home.

Mark takes Donghyuck’s hand in his because he wants to and he can, and Donghyuck shifts at that, pulled out of the light sleep he was in mere seconds ago. 

“Sleep.” Mark whispers into his hair and watches Donghyuck raise their conjoined hands to his lips and kiss the knuckle of Mark’s fourth finger.

Donghyuck murmurs something Mark doesn’t catch and then he’s off to sleep again, releasing a long breath, deflating against Mark’s side like a balloon after the party’s over.

His friend’s words are warm against his ears and Donghyuck’s body is warm against his side, hand warm against his palm, presence warm against his heart, and before he manages to drift off Mark faintly thinks that if anyone ever asked him to describe love in one word, it would be this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh so this story has finally come to an end. most of you probably won't read this bit and I don't blame you, but I just wanted to say that I am forever grateful for every single person who liked, commented and even clicked on this story to give it a chance.   
honestly when i wrote the first chapter a year ago, i never intended to continue this story, and when i did - half a year later - nothing went as i planned and i contemplated just completely deleting this whole thing off the face of the earth. but i didn't, and I'm glad i didn't, because as much of a pain in the ass as this story was, it also was very comforting for me to write. 
> 
> it feels weird having finally finished this, but I'm also very proud of myself for pushing through and finishing an entire chaptered fic, because i usually tend to write only one-shots. finishing this also means i can finally allow myself to move onto other projects, maybe even bigger ones than i allowed myself to take on before writing this story.
> 
> ahhh anyways, thank you so much for reading and sticking with me throughout this (way too long of) a journey!!! a special thank you to every single person who commented and reached out to me on either twitter or curious cat to send me nice messages about this story - they really were my main motivation to not abandon this work. so thank you <3  
comments and kudos are still and always appreciated :]  
[twt](https://twitter.com/LOVHYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/sunhyuc)


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